Q22 - Riverdale's Modern Party Chairperson: Maples, the

by **mshinners** Fri Dec 31, 1999 8:00 pm

Question Type:
Inference/Must be False

Stimulus Breakdown:
The stimulus gives us two rather strong comparisons that overlap a bit:
1) Maples (Modern) > Tannett (Traditionalist) for mayor (they were nice in letting the name and party start with the same letter!
2) Modern Party > Traditionalist Party in mayoral qualifications

Answer Anticipation:
We need to find an answer that directly contradicts one of the above statements. It will probably tell us something about a Traditionalist Party member being as good as or better than someone in the Modern Party. It's also likely that they'll try to bring up other party members to make us think that answer is out of scope, but my second rule/comparison lets me talk about any member of either party.

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Out of scope (which means, for MBF, that it's not our answer - if it's out of scope, we don't know about it, so it could be true!). We don't compare people within the same party.

(B) Out of scope. We don't compare people within the same party (similar to A).

(C) Out of scope. The stimulus doesn't talk about the beliefs of the residents.

(D) Out of scope. Same as (A)/(B), we don't compare people within the same party.

(E) Bingo. We know, from the second comparison, that every Modern Party member beats out every Traditionalist Party member in qualifications. Tannett, as a member of the Traditionalist Party, must therefore be less qualified than each member of the Modern Party, including their Chairperson. Since this answer directly contradicts the givens, it must be false.

Takeaway/Pattern: Be careful in Must be False questions! Answers that you don't know about (out of scope) are not contradicted, and thus are not your answer. This is different from how we approach most Inference questions, making the shift a dangerous one. I always pause before jumping into a Must be False question to reset and clearly state what I'm looking for - directly contradicted, not just unproven.

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