How to solve this CR?:

Comcorp Shipping Clerk: Last week, no shipments of building supplies were sent out on friday. The five specially ordered shipments sent out last week were sent out on Thursday, and each of those specially ordered shipments consisted entirely of building supplies. Four shipments were sent to Truax Construction last week, none of which consisted of building supplies.

If the shipping clerk's statements are true, which of the following must also be true?

a. All of Comcorp's shipments of building supplies last week were specially ordered.
b. None of Comcorp's shipments sent on friday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.
c. None of the shipments sent by Comcorp by Truax Construction last week was specially ordered.
d. None of Comcorp's shipments sent on thursday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.
e. All of Comcorp's shipments of building supplies last week were sent out on thursday.

IMO C

C.None of the shipments sent by Comcorp by Truax Construction last week was specially ordered

The five specially ordered shipments sent out last week were sent out on Thursday, and each of those specially ordered shipments consisted entirely of building supplies.
[Special Order -> building supplies]
AND
"Four shipments were sent to Truax Construction last week, none of which consisted of building supplies."
[shipments to Truax -> NOT building Supplies]

The above two statements tells us that Truax Construction did not get any building supplies last week, and all the special order were of building supplies.

Hence we can conclude that Shipments sent by Comcorp to Truax Corp were NOT specially ordered.

[Special Order -> building supplies] == [NOT building supplies -> NOT special order]

therefore
[shipments to Truax -> NOT building Supplies] -> NOT Special order

What is the OA?

IMO: C

Refer to below diagram:

Last Week:

Mon
Tue
Wed
Thur --> (5 only S.O.S --> Building.Supplies) + may be other shipment
Fri --> no shipmetn
Sat
Sun

4 other shipment to Traux were not B.Supplies, might be sent any day except friday

nicely done.

In this case, Shipments have 2 qualities: 1) specially ordered (SO) 2) Building Supplies (BS)
Comcorp Shipping:
Friday: xBS (no BS)
Thursday: 5 SO -> each consisted entirely of building supplies => 5 SO,BS.

Truax Construction:
"Last week" Received : 4 xBS.

A) Can be false. No information about rest 5 days of the week.
B) Can be false. Some xBS out of 4 xBS (Friday: Comcorp -> Truax).
C) Must Be True. If some (Last week: Comcorp -> Truax), then it has to be BS. (see above blue line). But, last week Truax received 4 xBS.
... similarly you can check option D/E - can be false.

Answer: C

A "negation test" can be applied here.
HTH.

IMO the answer is E.
Explanation :-
Lets assume there are two different types of supplies :-
S1 -- Building Supplies
S2 -- All other supplies than building supplies

All the S1s for the week were sent out on Friday so Mon-Thu consisted of S2 type supplies only.
So the shipments for the week must be like :-
Day -- Type of shipment sent out
Mon -- S2
Tue -- S2
Wed -- S2
Thu -- 5 special orders (of S2 type ofcourse)
Fri -- Building supplies only (S1)

Now Traux Const. recd 4 shipments out of which 3 were building supplies (S1) so the rest of the shipment must be of type S2.

Lets take a look at choice E :-

E. at least one of the shipments sent out to Traux Const last week was sent out before Friday
--> BINGO !! This must be true because one of the shipments sent out to Traux Const was of type S2, all of which were sent out from Mon-Thursday and Friday was reserved for S1 i.e. building supplies.

sharma.anand84 --

are you answering a different question?

it appears that you're responding to a completely different problem (and different answer choices), since EVERY ONE of the prompts/answers you've cited is in direct contradiction to what appears in the problem in the original post.

viz.:



the original question actually says that all of friday's shipments were S2, not S1. where are you getting this?




hmm?
the question (see original post) specifically states that thursday's orders were all building supplies (s1).




the question (see original post) specifically states that NONE of truax's orders were S1. therefore, those were ALL S2.



this is not choice (e) from the original problem.

choice (e) from the original problem is
(e) All of Comcorp's shipments of building supplies last week were sent out on thursday.

--

is there a different version of this problem floating around?

if so, please start a separate thread for it!
thanks.

Hello Ron,

For this question, why the answer cannot be option 'd'? Is it because it is implicit in the clerk's statement? And because we need something outside the statement (but within scope of course):
Comcorp Shipping Clerk: Last week, no shipments of building supplies were sent out on friday. The five specially ordered shipments sent out last week were sent out on Thursday, and each of those specially ordered shipments consisted entirely of building supplies. Four shipments were sent to Truax Construction last week, none of which consisted of building supplies.

If the shipping clerk's statements are true, which of the following must also be true?

a. All of Comcorp's shipments of building supplies last week were specially ordered.
b. None of Comcorp's shipments sent on friday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.
c. None of the shipments sent by Comcorp by Truax Construction last week was specially ordered.
d. None of Comcorp's shipments sent on thursday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.
e. All of Comcorp's shipments of building supplies last week were sent out on thursday.

Best regards,
Varun

nope -- there's nothing in the passage that suggests that the truax packages couldn't have been sent out on thursday.
the information in the passage states that thursday's SPECIAL orders all consisted of building supplies, but that doesn't mean that EVERY order on thursday consisted of building supplies (an assumption you'd have to make for choice (d) to follow).

in other words, there may have been other orders on thursday, about which the passage simply doesn't say anything; the passage only describes the special orders on that day.

This is a must be true type of question
Conclusion->Only facts are presented, so no conclusion present as such
Evidence/Premise->No building supplies shipment last week on Friday.
5 specially ordered building supplies shipment was sent on Thursday
Also, 5 special shipments were sent and all were of Building Supplies.

4 shipments sent to Turax last week and none were of building supplies.
This means, Turax did not receive any specially ordered shipments because they(specially ordered) were all building supplies shipments

Answer ic C

.

Ron, (not to disrespect the effort of previous posters), can you please provide a step by step approach for this one.

I am unable to see why the correct answer choice is different from the wrong ones.

Something in the good, old "a la Ron" style which says

a- eliminate because
b- irrelevant because

That sort of an explanation, please. :)

I have a problem with the definete article "the" in the sentence "The five specially ordered shipments sent out last week were sent out on Thursday ".
does "the" imply that there were only five specially ordered shipments sent out last week?
i think choice C is valid only if "the" has the meaning above...

can you confirm my understanding?

yes, that is what "the" + NUMBER means.

for instance:
Ray and Steve are the two witnesses to the crime --> no one saw the crime except these two guys.
Ray and Steve are two witnesses to the crime --> it is possible that there are other witnesses.

see also OG12 CR #43, in which "the two methods" plays the same sort of role.

Then I think the article "the" here makes all the difference in the world other wise Option C below can be proved wrong because we simply don't know the shipment details of Mon/Tues/Wed - Correct? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Comcorp Shipping Clerk: Last week, no shipments of building supplies were sent out on friday. The five specially ordered shipments sent out last week were sent out on Thursday, and each of those specially ordered shipments consisted entirely of building supplies. Four shipments were sent to Truax Construction last week, none of which consisted of building supplies.

If the shipping clerk's statements are true, which of the following must also be true?

a. All of Comcorp's shipments of building supplies last week were specially ordered.
b. None of Comcorp's shipments sent on friday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.
c. None of the shipments sent by Comcorp by Truax Construction last week was specially ordered.
d. None of Comcorp's shipments sent on thursday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.
e. All of Comcorp's shipments of building supplies last week were sent out on thursday.

Cheers
Jp