"Good hunter" and "bad hunter" are standard terms in the study of cats. Good hunters can kill prey that weigh up to h...

AnkitM February 11, 2016

Hi, question about making valid deductions.

Hey! Quick question, I understand how to diagram the statements, but was wondering if it is possible to combine two valid most statements that were concluded? Since they were not original statements can I still combine the most statements? This is irrelevant to the answer, but was just wondering for future purposes. I arrived at the conclusions: WC -m- HMTF and WC -m- KHW. So even though they were combined previously with a sufficient necessary statement, can it be further concluded? So HMTF -s- KHW? Thank you in advance!!

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Mehran April 14, 2016

@AnkitM absolutely! From the statements:

(1) WC-most-HMTF

AND

(2) WC-most-KHW

You can conclude: HMTF-some-KHW

Hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Marie November 16, 2017

Yes, I was wondering about that too. It does help because that explains why E is wrong is because it says "All cats.... etc" I was wondering about that too - thanks

but I have another question on this please:

when question states: "Good Hunters can kill prey that weighs half their weight"
I understood that to mean "All good hunters can kill prey that weighs up to half their body weight".

So should I take the statement to mean "most good hunters" unless it specifially says: "*All*good hunters"

Mehran November 29, 2017

Yes, that would be correct.

"Good hunters can kill prey that weighs half their weight" would be "all", i.e. good hunter is sufficient for the ability to kill prey that weighs half your weight.

Hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Ceci September 17, 2018

Why is B incorrect? I was down to B and D but couldn't distinguish

Mehran September 18, 2018

@Ceci the problem with (B) is that we don't know the number of domestic cats versus wild cats.

Remember, "most" is a percentage and we cannot confuse percents with actual numbers.

For example, if there were 3 wild cats, 2 of them would be good hunters according to the stimulus (i.e. "most wild cats are good hunters").

But what if we had 10 domestic cats? If 3 of them were good hunters that would satisfy "some domestic cats are good hunters." Remember, "some" means at least one.

This example proves that (B) is not necessarily true.

Hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Dalaal March 2, 2020

Hi @Mehran,
I don't understand why would we consider that "good hunters can kill prey that weighs half their weight" is an "All Statement." @Naz explained in her illustration on one of the previous messages that this statement is not a S & N due to the word "can."