Self-study
It is difficult to grow cacti in a humid climate. ██ ██ █████████ ██ █████ ██████ █████ ██ █ ████ ████████ ██ ████ █████ ██ █ ███████ ████████ ██ ██ ██████ ████ ██ ████ █████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ██████ ██████
Stimulus Summary
The stimulus gives us three separate facts. Let's read them one at a time and push them together to make inferences, if possible.
Fact 1: Humid climate → difficult to grow cacti.
Fact 2: Cold climate → difficult to raise orange trees.
Fact 3: In most of a certain country, it's either easy to grow cacti or easy to raise orange trees.
The first two facts create contrapositives that matter for Fact 3. If it's easy to grow cacti somewhere, that place can't be humid. If it's easy to raise orange trees somewhere, that place can't be cold. And notice what "or" means in Fact 3: in most of the country, at least one of these plants is easy to grow. If one isn't easy in a given region, the other one has to be.
So Fact 3 is really telling us: in most of the country, it's either not humid or not cold (or both).
Anticipation
We need the answer that must be false — the one that contradicts what the stimulus guarantees. We just inferred that in most of the country, it's either not humid or not cold (or both). The correct answer is likely to contradict this inference.
25.
If the statements above are █████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ██ ██████
a
Half of the ███████ ██ ████ █████ ███ █████
Must be false. We inferred that in more than half of the country, it's either not humid or not cold. So it's impossible for exactly half to be both humid and cold. We need at least 51% of the country to be not humid or not cold.
✓ What the stimulus guarantees
"Most" satisfied ✓
✗ If (A) is true
Not "most" — contradiction ✗
The left pie shows what the stimulus requires: more than half of the country in the "not humid or not cold" zone. The right pie shows what happens if (A) is true: half the country is humid and cold, leaving at most half for the "not humid or not cold" zone. So (A) directly contradicts what the stimulus guarantees.
b
Most of the ███████ ██ ████
Could be true. "Hot" isn't the same as "humid." A country could be mostly hot and dry — great conditions for growing cacti. As long as most of the country is either not humid or not cold, nothing in the stimulus rules out most of the country being hot.
c
Some parts of ███ ███████ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ██████
Could be true. Parts that are neither cold nor humid would be friendly to both cacti and orange trees. That's compatible with the stimulus.
d
It is not ████████ ██ █████ █████ ██ ███ ████████
Could be true. As long as in most of the country it’s easy to raise orange trees, it could be that cacti can’t be raised in the country.
e
Most parts of ███ ███████ ███ ██████
Could be true. As long as most of the country is not cold, it’s possible most of the country is humid.