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Putting a tap in a healthy maple that has a trunk 12 or more inches in diameter will not harm the tree. ██████ ███████ ███ ███████ ███ ████████ ██████ ███ ███ ██ ██████ ███ ██████ █████ ██████ ███ █████ ██████ ████████ ██ ████ ███ █████ ███████ ███████ ██ ███ ███ ██████ ███ ███ ███ ███ ███████ █████████████ ██ ██████
Objective: Must Be True Questions
Must Be True questions present a series of claims in the stimulus, then ask us to provide an additional claim that can be validly inferred (i.e. on the spectrum of support, our answer choice must be super-duperly supported).
So it’s highly beneficial to spend time up front wrapping your head around the stimulus – simplifying or diagramming grammatically-complex claims, splitting out combined claims into two or more separate claims, etc. – and the dream is to generate your own inference(s) to proactively seek out in the answer choices.
That’s not always practical (sometimes it’s just hard, and sometimes there are too many to track), in which case using process of elimination – measuring each answer choice against the stimulus to ask “does this follow?” – is completely fine. But process of elimination or no, you need a crystal clear understanding of the stimulus.
As you evaluate the answer choices, remember that in general, weak claims are more likely to be true than strong claims – even without context, it is more likely that some glubsters are flubsters than it is that all glubsters are flubsters.
Distilling The Premises
In this question, knowing when you can and cannot split up complex claims is quite important. Behold:
Sentence 1
If a maple is healthy and it’s big, tapping it won’t harm the maple.
(It turns out Sentence 1 is quite important, so here’s the contrapositive for your convenience:)
If you harmed a maple by tapping it, it was either unhealthy or not big.
Sentence 2
Silver maples can be tapped.
Red maples can be tapped.
Manitoba maples can be tapped.
Sentence 3
Sugar maple best maple.
Sugar maple most sugar.
Notice how we didn’t split the first sentence up, but did split up the second. That’s because these claims have different logical structures. In Sentence 1, both terms in the sufficient condition (i.e. healthy & big) must be fulfilled to trigger the necessary condition (no harm). In Sentence 2, you don’t need to be a silver maple and and red maple and a Manitoba maple to be tapped – any of them can be tapped.
(It turns out Sentence 2 doesn’t matter at all in this question, but still.)
Anticipating the correct answer’s particular inference (or forming the broad idea that it’ll be related to Sentence 1) is somewhat reasonable here, but as long as you’ve boiled these claims down so you have them clear in your head (or on paper), you’ll be all right.
18.
If the statements above are █████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ██ █████
a
A maple whose █████ ██ ████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ████████ ██ █████████ ██ ██ ██ ██████ ██ ████████
b
The healthiest maple █████ ███ ███████ █████ ████ ███ ███████ ███████
c
A maple tree ████ ███ ████ ██████ ████ ███████ ████ ██████ ████
d
Putting a tap ████ ██ █████████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ████████ ████ ████ ███
e
The maple trees ████ ████████ ████ ███ ██████ █████ ███ █████ ███████