PrepTest 106, Section 2, Question 19
Nearly all mail that is correctly addressed arrives(39 more words not shown)
If the statements above are(9 more words not shown)
- AA large proportion(11 more words not shown)
- BNo incorrectly addressed(9 more words not shown)
- CMost mail that(11 more words not shown)
- DA large proportion(5 more words not shown)
- EMore mail arrives(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
If nearly all correctly addressed mail arrives within two business days, why does most mail overall take at least three? The correctly addressed group can't represent almost the entire pile. There must be a substantial amount of incorrectly addressed mail.
Could damage explain all the delay instead? The passage does allow delayed correctly addressed mail when it is damaged. But the first sentence still says nearly all correctly addressed mail arrives within two days. Whatever happens to that small delayed portion, it can't account for a majority of all mail if almost everything were correctly addressed.
What we’re looking for
So the inference should concern the size of the incorrectly addressed group. Be careful not to sharpen “a substantial amount” into a precise percentage. The rare delayed pieces within the correctly addressed group can also contribute to the overall majority that arrives late.
Working the answers
- A
We know that correctly addressed mail taking longer must have been damaged. We aren't told that all damaged mail takes longer, so the delivery times don't reveal the total amount damaged. A large damaged proportion might be possible, but it isn't established by these facts.
- B
The rules for correctly addressed mail don't forbid an incorrectly addressed item from arriving quickly. A small error might be resolved in time, for example. The passage gives no universal rule that every address mistake requires a delay beyond two days.
- C
This starts with a different group. We know that nearly all correctly addressed mail is quick. We don't know that most quick mail is correctly addressed.
If correctly addressed mail were a small group, even a minority of a much larger incorrectly addressed group could supply more quick pieces. The first statement would remain true, but the quick-arrival group could contain more incorrectly addressed mail than correctly addressed mail. The direction of the comparison matters.
- DCorrect
A large incorrectly addressed group is needed to reconcile the high quick-delivery rate among correctly addressed mail with the predominance of slow delivery overall. If almost all mail were correctly addressed, nearly all of that enormous group would arrive quickly, leaving no room for most mail overall to arrive late.
The answer wisely says “a large proportion,” not “more than half.” For illustration, suppose 51 percent of all mail is correctly addressed, and 98 percent of that group arrives quickly. If the other 49 percent all arrives late, just over half of all mail is late. That fits the passage even though slightly less than half is incorrectly addressed. The broad conclusion is supported; the exact majority claim isn't required.
- E
Knowing that most mail takes three days or more doesn't divide the remaining mail between arrival within two days and arrival between two and three days. Either of those smaller groups might exceed the other. The passage supplies no figures for that comparison.
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