Pigeons

IOB C

I say B.

The author states that the pigeons are valuable when the military wants to send messages without being intercepted. Therefore, it must be true that sending messages via pigeons cannot be intercepted.

This would be an inference question. Therefore, you should be able to refer to the stimulus to check your answer.

(a) The use of carrier pigeons is usually preferable to the use of portable electronic devices when a military unit needs a way to send classified military information.

My choice. This is basically a summary for the last sentence. "Even today, their uncanny ability to fly home over great distances makes them valuable to modern military units that need a way to deliver messages without the use of portable electronic devices whose signals can be intercepted."

(b) Eliminate: too strong! "Cannot". What if I was out pigeon hunting with my factitious BB gun? I would be able to intercept a message if it had a message, right?

(c) Contender. I eliminated because there was no mention of the frequency of use (more vs. less).

(d) Eliminate: Prior to the earliest? This is a time shift statement. We're talking about the 20th and 21st century.

(e) Eliminate: Too subjective and strong. What does "extensive" mean?

Somerandomguy wrote:This would be an inference question. Therefore, you should be able to refer to the stimulus to check your answer.

(a) The use of carrier pigeons is usually preferable to the use of portable electronic devices when a military unit needs a way to send classified military information.

My choice. This is basically a summary for the last sentence. "Even today, their uncanny ability to fly home over great distances makes them valuable to modern military units that need a way to deliver messages without the use of portable electronic devices whose signals can be intercepted."

(b) Eliminate: too strong! "Cannot". What if I was out pigeon hunting with my factitious BB gun? I would be able to intercept a message if it had a message, right?

(c) Contender. I eliminated because there was no mention of the frequency of use (more vs. less).

(d) Eliminate: Prior to the earliest? This is a time shift statement. We're talking about the 20th and 21st century.

(e) Eliminate: Too subjective and strong. What does "extensive" mean?

Somerandomguy - first of all, welcome to the forum.

I like the way you explain your solution. Hope those IMOs people will learn something from you.

logitech wrote:

Somerandomguy wrote:This would be an inference question. Therefore, you should be able to refer to the stimulus to check your answer.

(a) The use of carrier pigeons is usually preferable to the use of portable electronic devices when a military unit needs a way to send classified military information.

My choice. This is basically a summary for the last sentence. "Even today, their uncanny ability to fly home over great distances makes them valuable to modern military units that need a way to deliver messages without the use of portable electronic devices whose signals can be intercepted."

(b) Eliminate: too strong! "Cannot". What if I was out pigeon hunting with my factitious BB gun? I would be able to intercept a message if it had a message, right?

(c) Contender. I eliminated because there was no mention of the frequency of use (more vs. less).

(d) Eliminate: Prior to the earliest? This is a time shift statement. We're talking about the 20th and 21st century.

(e) Eliminate: Too subjective and strong. What does "extensive" mean?

Somerandomguy - first of all, welcome to the forum.

I like the way you explain your solution. Hope those IMOs people will learn something from you.

Thanks for the comment! I think this stuff is fun!

BTW, what's the credited response?

Somerandomguy wrote:This would be an inference question. Therefore, you should be able to refer to the stimulus to check your answer.

(a) The use of carrier pigeons is usually preferable to the use of portable electronic devices when a military unit needs a way to send classified military information.

My choice. This is basically a summary for the last sentence. "Even today, their uncanny ability to fly home over great distances makes them valuable to modern military units that need a way to deliver messages without the use of portable electronic devices whose signals can be intercepted."

(b) Eliminate: too strong! "Cannot". What if I was out pigeon hunting with my factitious BB gun? I would be able to intercept a message if it had a message, right?

(c) Contender. I eliminated because there was no mention of the frequency of use (more vs. less).

(d) Eliminate: Prior to the earliest? This is a time shift statement. We're talking about the 20th and 21st century.

(e) Eliminate: Too subjective and strong. What does "extensive" mean?

Continuing to the explanation provided by "Somerandomguy", IMO, the reasons for options (B), (C) and (E) are right but I do have doubt over option (A) and (D). IMO, (D) should be answer because as it is an interference question, hence we need to pick an option that verifies the stimulus. Let's look option (A) and (D) one by one.

(A) The pigeons are still used to send the classified information.
Yes, it is very strong contender for the right choice, but lets disapprove (D) first.

(D) Carrier pigeons were used before the time when it was first time recorded this event in the history.
Can we negate the above sentence? No, not possible, because if something is not happened then it cannot be recorded as history. So, if the pigeons communication event was recorded in the history for the first time then before that the pigeons should be used for the communication.

For more details, for example, lets say pigeons communication were first time recorded in the history books during 1810 A.D. So, it means that before 1810 A.D. the pigeons should be used during the warfare.

So this makes the (D) most strong contender among all the choices.

its b/w a and B

I choose B

A: stimulus said they are valuable without using electronic comm.

it didn't say : they are prefferable.

codesnooker wrote:

Somerandomguy wrote:This would be an inference question. Therefore, you should be able to refer to the stimulus to check your answer.

(a) The use of carrier pigeons is usually preferable to the use of portable electronic devices when a military unit needs a way to send classified military information.

My choice. This is basically a summary for the last sentence. "Even today, their uncanny ability to fly home over great distances makes them valuable to modern military units that need a way to deliver messages without the use of portable electronic devices whose signals can be intercepted."

(b) Eliminate: too strong! "Cannot". What if I was out pigeon hunting with my factitious BB gun? I would be able to intercept a message if it had a message, right?

(c) Contender. I eliminated because there was no mention of the frequency of use (more vs. less).

(d) Eliminate: Prior to the earliest? This is a time shift statement. We're talking about the 20th and 21st century.

(e) Eliminate: Too subjective and strong. What does "extensive" mean?

Continuing to the explanation provided by "Somerandomguy", IMO, the reasons for options (B), (C) and (E) are right but I do have doubt over option (A) and (D). IMO, (D) should be answer because as it is an interference question, hence we need to pick an option that verifies the stimulus. Let's look option (A) and (D) one by one.

(A) The pigeons are still used to send the classified information.
Yes, it is very strong contender for the right choice, but lets disapprove (D) first.

(D) Carrier pigeons were used before the time when it was first time recorded this event in the history.
Can we negate the above sentence? No, not possible, because if something is not happened then it cannot be recorded as history. So, if the pigeons communication event was recorded in the history for the first time then before that the pigeons should be used for the communication.

For more details, for example, lets say pigeons communication were first time recorded in the history books during 1810 A.D. So, it means that before 1810 A.D. the pigeons should be used during the warfare.

So this makes the (D) most strong contender among all the choices.

My understanding is that you only negate "necessary assumption" questions, not inference questions. Please comment....

Jatinder wrote:its b/w a and B

I choose B

A: stimulus said they are valuable without using electronic comm.

it didn't say : they are prefferable.

My summary of (A) states that it is valuable to use pigeons when sending classified electronic military information, because the information can be intercepted. Doesn't this mean one is better/preferable to the other? Just my 2 cents...


What's the answer? :roll:

Somerandomguy wrote:

Jatinder wrote:its b/w a and B

I choose B

A: stimulus said they are valuable without using electronic comm.

it didn't say : they are prefferable.

My summary of (A) states that it is valuable to use pigeons when sending classified electronic military information, because the information can be intercepted. Doesn't this mean one is better/preferable to the other? Just my 2 cents...


What's the answer? :roll:

IMO, (I could be wrong), we should not take out the meaning prefferable just because it is valuable.

what if pigeons take 2 days to deliver and electronic stuff 2 sec ?
then in that case pigeons would not be prefferable

What's OA ?

Somerandomguy wrote: My understanding is that you only negate "necessary assumption" questions, not inference questions. Please comment....

You are absolutely correct that we apply negation technique to Assumption questions. Also, IMO, this question comes under category of either "Must be true" or "interference" question.

Also both choices (A) and (D) are very strong contender of right choices. So irrespective of any special technique if we look at both the options then we can see that option (A) used the term USUALLY, which means it could be 50% or more but less then 100%. So that means we are not very sure about still pigeons are used for classified information transmission. That leads this option (A) into the DOUBT OF SCOPE.

On the other hand, we negate (If it is difficult to understand the scope of any statement then try to negate the statement to understand its scope) the choice (D) then, we can see that premises doesn't stand itself for the conclusion. Hence, (D) "must be true" in order to lead the conclusion.

So in IMO (D) should be the correct answer, irrespective of other choices.

Hope this helps...

What is the OA???

Jatinder wrote:

Somerandomguy wrote:

Jatinder wrote:its b/w a and B

I choose B

A: stimulus said they are valuable without using electronic comm.

it didn't say : they are prefferable.

My summary of (A) states that it is valuable to use pigeons when sending classified electronic military information, because the information can be intercepted. Doesn't this mean one is better/preferable to the other? Just my 2 cents...


What's the answer? :roll:

IMO, (I could be wrong), we should not take out the meaning prefferable just because it is valuable.

what if pigeons take 2 days to deliver and electronic stuff 2 sec ?
then in that case pigeons would not be prefferable

What's OA ?

Touche. But what if the chances of electronic interception and the damage as a result of being decoded far outweighs the length of time to receive the communication? In this case, it would be preferable.

oops, I was looking for an assumption.
Therefore, I believe the answer should be A