Thanks for the question! So let’s take a careful look at the way the stimulus is diagrammed. First, we’re told that people who can fully concentrate are always of above-average intelligence. Then, we’re told that being successfully trained in speed-reading will usually be accompanied by an increased ability to concentrate. Diagramming this:
Can fully concentrate —> Above-average intelligence
Successfully trained in speed reading —> Usually increased ability to concentrate
Now let’s take a look at (A), which tells us that some people can speed-read, can fully concentrate, but are of below-average intelligence. The key point here is that they can fully concentrate, which triggers our first conditional. That means that they should be of above-average intelligence, but they aren’t, which means that (A) cannot be true based on the information we are given in the stimulus.
Now let’s take a look at (D). Unlike (A), it tells us that some people with little ability to concentrate are of below-average intelligence, but can speed read. This is perfectly consistent with the prompt. First of all, people who are successfully trained in speed-reading are USUALLY able to concentrate more, but not always. Second off, speed-reading only is accompanied by an INCREASED ability to concentrate, not an ability to fully concentrate. So maybe these people had just almost no ability to concentrate, which got increased to “little” ability to concentrate. Since (D) is consistent with the passage, it could be true, and so isn’t the right answer.
Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.
christinea303June 24, 2020
can it be diagrammed as "people trained in speed reading - some - have increased ability to concentrate"?
usually being a key word, indicating sometimes, and not always. Or would I use most instead?
shunheJuly 3, 2020
Hi @christinea303,
Thanks for the question! Yes, you * can * diagram it like that. As in that’s a reasonable way to diagram it. You could even diagram it as a “most” statement here (because of the word usually):
Successfully trained in speed-reading —most—> Increased ability to concentrate
However, doing that here wouldn’t have really helped; notice that I didn’t do it at all in my explanation. So yes, you can, but you don’t really need to.
Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.
erica-scottAugust 5, 2020
What about the key word "always" in the first sentence? It says, "Those who have the ability to fully concentrate are always of above-average intelligence". So wouldn't that be diagramed as:
Above-average intelligence --> ability to fully concentrate
Let me know, thanks!
erica-scottAugust 13, 2020
still wondering on this question - let me know! thanks!
