Columnist: Some people argue that the government should not take over failing private-sector banks because the govern...

shunhe on August 10, 2020

Hi @kenken,

Thanks for the question! So this is certainly a type of inference question, but it’s asking you what must be false (as opposed to a must be true question). So based on the passage, we need to find the answer that, based on inferring from the passage, we have to reject. That’s a bit different from finding something that can’t logically be inferred from the passage. For example, take the following statement:

All swans are white.

Well, we know that “Bob is a black swan” must be a false statement. That’s a “must be false” (similar to on logic games, or on a could be true except), where the passage gives us information that allows us to reject something. Now take the following statement:

Mary is a white cat.

This is a statement that can’t be logically inferred from the passage. But does that mean it must be false? No, it could be true, but it could also be false. But nothing in the passage indicates it. This question is asking for the “Bob is a black swan” kind of statement.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.