If there are any inspired performances in the concert, the audience will be treated to a good show. But there will n...

Victoria on January 18, 2020

Hi Joyce,

Your diagrams of both the passage and the contrapositive are correct!

Remember that 'if' introduces a sufficient condition.

With that in mind, we can reorder the sentence so it is easier to follow re S&N diagramming:

If the audience will not be treated to a good show, no people who understand their musical roots will be in the audience

OR

Not GS - > Not UMR

This diagram does not match the contrapositive, so the answer cannot be (B).

Comparatively, answer choice (A) reads: if there are no sophisticated listeners in the audience, then there will be no inspired musical performances in the concert

OR

Not SL - > Not IPC which we can derive using the transitive property from the contrapositive

Hope this is helpful! Please let us know if you have any further questions.

Shirnel on March 15, 2020

Thanks for explaining this Victoria. So I get some more clarification, the reason why B is wrong is because of the term "no people" is different from "no one person." Because the statement read:

one must understand one's musical roots (different from people must understand their musical roots) which is essentially what B is saying. s that correct?

BenMingov on March 20, 2020

Hi @Shirnel, thanks for the question.

Let's diagram B to see how it should be understood.

No people who understand their musical roots will be in the audience if the audience will not be treated to a good show.

We know which term is sufficient because of the word "if".

NOT good show -> NOT understand musical roots

In looking at the contrapositive of the entire passage, we see that the direction of information does not go from NOT GS to NOT UMR, this answer choice is reversed.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you want any further clarification with regard to B or other answer choices.