Critical Reasoning

People with serious financial problems are so worried about money that they cannot be happy. Their misery makes everyone close to them-family, friends, and colleagues-unhappy as well. Only if their financial problems are solved can they and those around them be happy. Which one of the following statements can be properly inferred from the passage?

A. Only serious problems make people unhappy.
B. People who solve their serious financial problems will be happy.
C. People who do not have serious financial problems will be happy.
D. If people are unhappy, they have serious financial problems.
E. If people are happy, they do not have serious financial problems.

[spoiler]OA: After some discussion. How to solve such type of questions ?[/spoiler]

Is it B

the answer will be B
D and E are out bcuz it is reverse answers meaning, if A-->B we can not conclude B-->A
between Band C, of course b is the one mentioned in the passage..
A is out bcuz it does not make sense according to the info stated

this is "must be true" questions.. means that we have to accept all information in the stimulus and based on these info, choose the correct answer.. correct answer is praphrase of one of premises or combination of 2 premises... the most important thing is that we can not bring any extra info into the correct answer choice.. just the info mentioned in the Q... BTW this type of Q does not have conclusion.. it is just some facts...

hope it helps

aspirant2011 wrote:People with serious financial problems are so worried about money that they cannot be happy. Their misery makes everyone close to them-family, friends, and colleagues-unhappy as well. Only if their financial problems are solved can they and those around them be happy. Which one of the following statements can be properly inferred from the passage?

A. Only serious problems make people unhappy.
B. People who solve their serious financial problems will be happy.
C. People who do not have serious financial problems will be happy.
D. If people are unhappy, they have serious financial problems.
E. If people are happy, they do not have serious financial problems.

[spoiler]OA: After some discussion. How to solve such type of questions ?[/spoiler]

A - generalised statement; also a stong statement
C - we are only concerned with people who have serious financial problems
D, E - reverse relations are given

c, d, e - we cannot infer these statements based on the info given

So ans is B

Please let me know if this helps..

why not E?

dev.gavande wrote:why not E?

Even I have that qsn.
Why not E?

A. Only serious problems make people unhappy. -- to generic, eliminated
B. People who solve their serious financial problems will be happy. -- the passage says - people who have financial problems are happy after they solve them. Can we take this statement as implying the same thing??
C. People who do not have serious financial problems will be happy. -- This can't be implied in any way.
D. If people are unhappy, they have serious financial problems. --- This can't be implied either.
E. If people are happy, they do not have serious financial problems. --- IF people who have financial problems are unhappy, then can we not say that if someone is happy, he definitely does not have financial problems?

Also, if we look at the language of B, it is definitive, "people will be happy" while in the passage the language is "people can be happy". Does that account to anything?

I am confused b/w B and E.
Can someone plz explain?

IMHO

A. Only serious problems make people unhappy. -- Eliminated
B. People who solve their serious financial problems will be happy. -- yes, this is implied. I would also check the question here. The question asks what can 'properly' inferred - properly this bit can be inferred from the passage.
C. People who do not have serious financial problems will be happy. -- Eliminated.
D. If people are unhappy, they have serious financial problems. --- Reverse co-relation given.
E. If people are happy, they do not have serious financial problems. --- This is a reverse co-relation. Moreover, too generic a statement. Sample this, A (financial problems) leads to B (unhappiness). But will B occur always because of A?

Got to be E. contra positive

boltu_gmat wrote:Got to be E. contra positive

Can you please explain in detail ??????

aspirant2011 wrote:People with serious financial problems are so worried about money that they cannot be happy. Their misery makes everyone close to them-family, friends, and colleagues-unhappy as well. Only if their financial problems are solved can they and those around them be happy. Which one of the following statements can be properly inferred from the passage?

A. Only serious problems make people unhappy.
B. People who solve their serious financial problems will be happy.
C. People who do not have serious financial problems will be happy.
D. If people are unhappy, they have serious financial problems.
E. If people are happy, they do not have serious financial problems.

[spoiler]OA: After some discussion. How to solve such type of questions ?[/spoiler]

(A) Out of scope.
(B) Suppose there are 3 friends: A, B and C. A and B are having financial trouble and C is financially stable. but as per the passage C can't be happy as A and B are his friends and they are not happy because of their financial problems. now suppose A solves his financial problems. Will he be happy? the answer to this question depends on the financial condition of B. If only B also solves his financial problems, all three can be happy. This condition eliminates the answer choice (B).
(C) We can't say that. there may be other reasons to make someone sad.
(D) same as C. there can be other reasons.
(E) As per the passage if people have financial problems they cannot be happy. so we can safely say that if people are happy, they surely do not have financial problems.

Hope that helps!

aspirant2011 wrote:People with serious financial problems are so worried about money that they cannot be happy. Their misery makes everyone close to them-family, friends, and colleagues-unhappy as well. Only if their financial problems are solved can they and those around them be happy. Which one of the following statements can be properly inferred from the passage?

A. Only serious problems make people unhappy.
B. People who solve their serious financial problems will be happy.
C. People who do not have serious financial problems will be happy.
D. If people are unhappy, they have serious financial problems.
E. If people are happy, they do not have serious financial problems.

[spoiler]OA: After some discussion. How to solve such type of questions ?[/spoiler]

It's a theme that rarely comes up in the GMAT, but here goes:

If A---> then B

Does not mean that
not A --->not B.

For example:

"if it's hot, we'll hit the beach. "

does not mean that if it's not hot, we won't go to the beach. there might be other reasons for us to go to the beach, even though it's not hot - perhaps we like the cold, perhaps we like those winter sunsets, etc.

The only thing we CAN infer here is a reverse of the negation: if Not B ---> not A.

If we're not at the beach, id DOES mean that it's not hot - otherwise, if it were hot, we would be at the beach, right?

In the question above:

If we have financial problems (A), we are unhappy (B).

we can infer that if we're happy (Not B), we do not have financial problems (not A).
And the answer is E.

B fails because of the use of the word "can" in the last sentence. if we solve financial problems, people CAN be happy - does not mean that they WILL be happy.

Remember this "formula" - there's a small chance that you'll encounter such a if A--> then B formula, and then look for an answer choice that says "not B----> not A" as the right inference.

Damn I got this question correct

Thanks to Geva for providing such a detailed explanation.

I got this correct too!

Geva@MasterGMAT wrote:

aspirant2011 wrote:People with serious financial problems are so worried about money that they cannot be happy. Their misery makes everyone close to them-family, friends, and colleagues-unhappy as well. Only if their financial problems are solved can they and those around them be happy. Which one of the following statements can be properly inferred from the passage?

A. Only serious problems make people unhappy.
B. People who solve their serious financial problems will be happy.
C. People who do not have serious financial problems will be happy.
D. If people are unhappy, they have serious financial problems.
E. If people are happy, they do not have serious financial problems.

[spoiler]OA: After some discussion. How to solve such type of questions ?[/spoiler]

It's a theme that rarely comes up in the GMAT, but here goes:

If A---> then B

Does not mean that
not A --->not B.

For example:

"if it's hot, we'll hit the beach. "

does not mean that if it's not hot, we won't go to the beach. there might be other reasons for us to go to the beach, even though it's not hot - perhaps we like the cold, perhaps we like those winter sunsets, etc.

The only thing we CAN infer here is a reverse of the negation: if Not B ---> not A.

If we're not at the beach, id DOES mean that it's not hot - otherwise, if it were hot, we would be at the beach, right?

In the question above:

If we have financial problems (A), we are unhappy (B).

we can infer that if we're happy (Not B), we do not have financial problems (not A).
And the answer is E.

B fails because of the use of the word "can" in the last sentence. if we solve financial problems, people CAN be happy - does not mean that they WILL be happy.

Remember this "formula" - there's a small chance that you'll encounter such a if A--> then B formula, and then look for an answer choice that says "not B----> not A" as the right inference.

Hi Geva,

Thanks a lot for your response . Does I take this as a rule that in such type of CR questions for example: If A then B we have to always find a answer choice which says if not A the not B?

IMO E

It's not a very good idea to memorize rules in CR, because test makers twist an argument just enough to confuse test takers.
For inference based question , best strategy is POE. Eliminate anything not mentioned in the argument or fact set. Also be careful on "If" statements because they are conditional in nature, and they could still be within the scope of an argument or fact set.