Self-study
University administrator: Any proposal for a new department will not be funded if there are fewer than 50 people per year available for hire in that field and the proposed department would duplicate more than 25 percent of the material covered in one of our existing departments. ███ ████████ ████ ███████ ██████████ ████ █████████ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ████████ ███████ ██ ███ ████████ ████████████ ███████████ ████████ ██ ████ ████ ███ ███ ███████████
Summary
The stimulus can be diagrammed as follows:
Notable Valid Inferences
Some proposals duplicate more than 25% of the material covered in an existing department and are still funded.
There are 50+ people per year available for hire in the field of Area Studies.
6.
Which one of the following ██████████ ███████ █████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ███████████████ ███████████
a
The field of ████ ███████ ███ ██ █████ ██ ██████ ███ ████ █████████ ███ █████
Must be true. The necessary condition for funding is: the department must not duplicate >25% of an existing department’s material, or the hiring availability threshold of 50/year must be met. The proposal duplicates >25% and will be funded, so the hiring condition must be true.
b
The proposed Area ███████ ██████████ █████ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ████████ ███████ ██ ███ ████████ ██████████ █████ ████ █████████████
Could be false. We have no information about whether the proposed Area Studies Department duplicates material covered in any existing department other than Anthropology, and the stimulus gives us no way to draw this inference.
c
If the proposed ████ ███████ ██████████ ███ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ████████ ███████ ██ █████████████ ████ ███ ███ ██████████ █████ ███ ██ ███████
Could be false. “/Duplicate” is not a sufficient condition for funding, so we can’t infer anything about whether the Area Studies Department would be funded if it did not duplicate more than 25% of the material covered in Anthropology (or any other department).
d
The Anthropology Department ██████████ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ████████ ███████ ██ ███ ████████ ████ ███████ ███████████
Could be false. If there’s more material covered in the proposed Area Studies Department than there is in the Anthropology Department, it’s possible that the Anthropology material could fail to duplicate more than 25% of the Area Studies material.
e
The field of ████ ███████ ███ █████ ████ ██ ██████ ███ ████ █████████ ███ █████
Must be false. The necessary condition for funding is: the department must not duplicate >25% of an existing department’s material, or the hiring availability threshold of 50/year must be met. The proposal duplicates >25%, so there must be 50+ people available to hire per year.