Decide which of the given conclusions, if any, follows from the given statements.
Statements:
Doctors marry only brown girls.
Anita is a brown girl.
Conclusions:
I. Anita is married to a doctor.
II. Anita is not married to a doctor.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 4
The correct answer is Option (4) → Either conclusion I or II follows
A conclusion follows only if the statements make it certain. Here the statements say only whom doctors marry (brown girls and no others); they do not say that every brown girl marries a doctor.
Conclusion I (Anita is married to a doctor) does not follow on its own: being a brown girl makes Anita one of the girls a doctor may marry, not one who must be married to a doctor.
Conclusion II (Anita is not married to a doctor) does not follow on its own either: nothing in the statements rules out her marriage to a doctor.
But the two conclusions form a complementary pair: Anita is either married to a doctor or not, so one of the two must be true. That is why “either I or II follows”.
Tip: When two conclusions are about the same subject and one is the plain opposite of the other, and neither follows by itself, the answer is “either I or II follows”.