PT11.S2.Q12 - Centerville Botanical Gardens

teechj117teechj117 Alum Member
edited May 2021 in Logical Reasoning 296 karma

Hey all. I am having trouble writing this one out. Initially, I wanted to use subscripts and fit the entities in with conditional logic chains, but I quickly got lost in determining young and old. I did some form of relative positioning using greater than, less than symbols (<,>) but this is still giving me a problem.

1) All tulip trees are older than any maples
T > M
2) A majority, but not all, of the garden's sycamores are older than any of it's maples. I wanted to diagram this like a bi conditional relationship. Is this wrong?
Most S > M
Some S < M
3) All the garden's maples are older than any of it's dogwoods
M > D

Connecting (1) and (3)
T > M > D
Infer
T>D
Connecting (1) and (2)
T > M > Most S
T > M < Some S
Infer
T > Most S
T<---Some---> S

If I am understanding this correctly from the relationship between T, M,and D, Tulip trees comprise of the majority of the oldest trees. I kept this in mind as a reference. My problem came with translations back into english. I don't get how you can determine any of the relationships given in the answer choices, other than having worked out the stimulus in formal logic and then comparing each choice in formal logic. Even then, how do you determine old or young when you translate back into english?

I'm at a loss for this one

help

Comments

  • AA114211AA114211 Member
    edited February 2021 39 karma

    You have the right approach. This is a tough one. I tried it when I saw your question here because it looked interesting. So I almost looked at this like a LG sequencing.

    We KNOW [oldest to youngest] T > M > D.

    Then, we know MOST S > M.

    This means we're looking at T/S > M > D/S.

    Where more S are concentrated on the left side > M.

    So answer choice E says "Some sycamores are not as old as the youngest tulip trees." Meaning, some of the sycamores on the right side of what I wrote [in the "> D/S"] are younger than the tulips.

    Does that make sense?

  • AA114211AA114211 Member
    39 karma

    Also I just reread what you wrote and I don't think it's true that tulips are the majority of the older trees. I don't see where it says that. Imagine you had 10 trees. You could have

    (Oldest to youngest)
    2T
    2S
    2M
    2S
    2D

    and that should satisfy things

    Sometimes on MBT I draw ten dots and just visualize it.

  • McBeck418McBeck418 Member
    edited February 2021 500 karma

    I’m not quite sure if this strictly translates into lawgic. I’d be interested to know how one might translate the ‘majority but not all’ stipulation. Translating into lawgic isn’t necessarily my strongest skill, so maybe someone else can clarify this.

    The way that I looked at this question was by linking up what we knew about the ages. Tulips are older than Maples which are older than Dogwoods. T—M—D Then most sycamores are older than maples but not all. Therefore, at least one sycamore is younger than the maples. This means ‘some sycamores’ are not as old as the youngest tulip, since all tulips are older than maples.

    Hopefully this helps clarify some of the question.

  • teechj117teechj117 Alum Member
    296 karma

    Thank you both for your replies. When I revisited this problem, I realized I made a blunder on inferences between T and S. I inferred that "some" (not "most" as it should be) sycamores are younger than tulips. This looks more like D, which is what I picked. I was also thrown off trying to define "young" ,"old", and "not as old" out from lawgic, but this actually isn't much of a problem at all. This slowed me down, and led to my mistake when I rushed to answer.

    @AA114211
    This makes sense. I like the visual! I needed that reminder not to jump to conclusions.

    Your diagram of T/S > M > D/S. How are you reading T/S and D/S?

    @McBeck418
    I looked around for translations elsewhere for "a majority, but not all" and could only combine "most" and "not all" as a kind of deformed bi-conditional relationship. This screwed me, because when I defined "not all", I was thinking of the possibility of none. Same goes for most. I thought of the possibility of all. This is the trap. That being said, this relationship seems to work within the spaces of 1-99, suspending the belief of "all" and "none". During my revisit, I worked within these parameters.

    Conclusively, simply saying "at least one" sycamore is younger than the maples is a good reminder of what "some" actually means. Of course the testmakers are going to throw a curve to see if you can catch this, especially when it comes to translating back to English!

    As long as we remember T > M > D, then it's okay! Some (at least one) of the sycamores are younger than maples, and since all of the tulip trees are older than the maples, we can say

    at least one sycamore is younger (or not as old!) as the (youngest/oldest/middle child) tulip trees.

    Another way to say this would be
    "Most Tulips are older than the (youngest/oldest/middle child) sycamores"

    I feel like my brain was just put in a blender, brb

  • AA114211AA114211 Member
    39 karma

    @teechj117 For T/S and D/S, from what I remember, the stim gave us no info about who was older between T or S and D and S for some of them. There is no like strict way to write this, it just was an easy way to see it for me.

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