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feimala
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Apr 06, 2008 3:16 pm

Explanation required

Post by feimala »

The correct answer to the following question is D. Can someone please help me to understand why C isn't also a viable answer.

The favourite meat of Mr. Jones is beef whilst the favourite meat of Mr. Williams is lamb. If the two statements above are correct, which one of the four sentences below is true?

a) Mr. Jones doesn't like lamb.
b) Mr. Williams doesn't like beef.
c) Mr. Jones and Mr. Williams are not vegetarians.
d) Mr. Jones and Mr. Williams are both meat eaters.
Gilly
Posts: 139
Joined: Tue Sep 16, 2008 8:30 pm

Post by Gilly »

That's a tough one!

We can say that C is a 'possible' answer. But...

If we look at the facts available to us from the statement we can only conclude that both are meat eaters. These two words 'favourite meat' are repeated for both men and that explicitly relates to the choice D.

To get the answer as C we need to derive something else from the given statement, i.e, the definition of term 'vegetarian' which is not explicitly given in the question. On that basis D looks good as the answer.

I am sure someone else can give a better theory for this.

Gilly
Mum007
Posts: 81
Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:56 pm

Post by Mum007 »

Precisely why I disagreed with the answers of a few of the examples I tried with DS. They make my blood boil!

You cannot even assume that Mr J and Mr W eat meat just because their "favourite" meat is beef or lamb. I know this sounds really silly, but just say they had a medical condition which meant that they could not tolerate meat. Then, the person would not eat meat but could still have a favourite. Can we say, therefore, that D is correct? The logic is not squeaky clean. :twisted:

I told my son to ignore these questions and only do it if he had time which I was sure he wouldn't have.
Mike
Posts: 625
Joined: Thu Jan 12, 2006 4:29 pm

Post by Mike »

Hi

This type of question can pose problems when they are being constructed because they require accurate proof-reading.

If the correct answer is D, Mr Jones and Mr Williams are meat eaters, then answer option C is also correct as they are not vegetarians.

Most of these questions have five answer options for multiple-choice papers, not four and most questions that appear in NFER written papers contain slightly more information, making them more difficult to work out. If written correctly the student can be lead to assume facts from the information provided, but there should only be one "clearly" acccurate correct answer option.

During the preparation process students should be encouraged to complete all of these question types. However, for students who are taking too long to complete them they should be advised to leave them until the end of the test.

Regards

Mike
(NB we did not write the question in this topic)
Mike Edwards is a co-author of The Tutors product range.
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