Monday, January 19, 2009

CR Question 45

Nearly all mail that is correctly addressed arrives at its destination within two business days of being sent. In fact, correctly addressed mail takes longer than this only when it is damaged in transit. Overall, however, most mail arrives three business days or more after being sent.

If the statements above are true, which one of the following must be true?

A) A large proportion of the mail that is correctly addressed is damaged in transit

B) No incorrectly addressed mail arrives within two business days of being sent

C) Most mail that arrives within two business days of being sent is correctly addressed

D) A large proportion of mail is incorrectly addressed.

E) More mail arrives within two business days of being sent than arrives between two and three business days after being sent


Answer: D

OE:
This is a tricky question because it asks the test taker to come to a conclusion that is obviously false in real-life (but standardized tests aren't real life).
The question tells us that nearly all mail that is correctly addressed arrives within two business days. The only mail that doesn't arrive within two business days must be damaged mail and incorrectly addressed mail. Because we know that nearly all correctly addressed mail is not damaged, the fact that most mail arrives three business days or more after being sent can be read to indicate that there is a very large number of incorrectly addressed mail, which is answer (D).

A - incorrect - because the question states that 'overall, most mail arrives within three days,' indicating that a small amount of mail was lost.

B - incorrect - the passage contains no information to rule this possibility out.

C - incorrect - the passage tells us that if a piece of mail is correctly addressed that it will arrive within two days, assuming that there is no damage. But, if a large proportion of mail is incorrectly addressed (see D), then it is possible that (C) is not true since a large proportion is not correctly addressed.

E - incorrect - There is no evidence of this in the statement or way to deduce it.