Self-study
Any food that is not sterilized and sealed can contain disease-causing bacteria. ████ ██████████ ███ ████████ ███████ ████████ ██ ████████ ██ █████████ █████ ███ ████ █████████ ██████████ █████████████████ ███████████ ████ ████████ ██████ ███████████ ███ ███████ ████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ███████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████████████ █████████ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ███ ████ ███████ ███████ ████ ███████ ████ █████ ████ ██ █████ ██ ████████ ████████
Summary
Any food that is not sterilized and sealed can contain disease-causing bacteria.
Any food that has been sterilized and properly sealed does not contain bacteria.
Some acceptable food-preservation techniques involve sterilizing and sealing food.
Some acceptable food-preservation techniques involve slowing the growth of disease-causing bacteria.
Some acceptable food-preservation techniques may destroy natural food enzymes that cause food to spoil or discolor quickly.
Notable Valid Inferences
It is possible to preserve food in an acceptable way without entirely eliminating disease-causing bacteria.
If a food has been preserved without being sterilized or sealed, that food could contain disease-causing bacteria.
17.
If the statements above are █████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ██ █████
a
All food preserved ██ ██ ██████████ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ███████████████ █████████
Must be false. The stimulus states that some acceptable food-preservation techniques involve slowing the growth of disease-causing bacteria, rather than eliminating them completely.
b
Preservation methods that ███████ ███████ ████ █████ ████ ██ █████ ██ ███ █████████ ███ █████
Could be false. The stimulus is vague about which techniques destroy natural food enzymes, so it’s possible that a sterilization technique might do so.
c
Food preserved by █ █████████████ ██████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ ████████ ███████ ████ ████ █████████ ████ █████ ████████
Could be false. The stimulus is vague about which techniques destroy natural food enzymes and thereby cause food to discolor less quickly, so it’s possible that sterilization does not have this effect.
d
Any nonsterilized food █████████ ██ ██ ██████████ ██████ ███ ███████ ███████████████ █████████
Must be true. The stimulus explicitly states that any food that has not been both sterilized and properly sealed can contain disease-causing bacteria!
e
If a food ████████ ██ █████████ ████ ██ ███ ████ █████████ ██ ██ ██████████ ███████
Could be false. The stimulus doesn’t say that only sterilized and sealed (and thus acceptably preserved) food can be bacteria-free; rather, it tells us that all food that has been sterilized and sealed is bacteria-free. (E) confuses the necessary and sufficient conditions.