In each question below is given a statement followed by two conclusions…

Concept: In statement-and-conclusion reasoning, a conclusion "follows" only if it is a certain, unavoidable inference from the statement alone. It must not introduce any actor, comparison, or claim the statement never makes, and it must not merely be a loosely related or plausible-sounding idea.

Application: The statement says fashion is so intolerably ugly that it has to be altered every six months. Conclusion I is about fashion designers understanding the public mind - the statement makes no claim at all about designers, so this brings in a subject the statement never addresses and cannot be deduced from it. Conclusion II is about the public being highly susceptible to novelty - the statement's own claim that people find fashion so intolerable they change it every six months is itself direct evidence that people crave something new very often, so this is an unavoidable consequence of the statement.

• "Fashion designers do not understand the public mind very well" is not supported - the statement says nothing about designers, so this cannot be deduced from it.

• "The public by and large is highly susceptible to novelty" is supported - the six-monthly need to change fashion follows only if people constantly want something new, which is exactly what this conclusion states.

• An "either/or" verdict applies only when the two conclusions are complementary alternatives, i.e. exactly one of them must be true. That is not the case here, since one conclusion is independently derivable from the statement on its own merit.

• A "neither" verdict is ruled out because one of the two conclusions is in fact a certain, direct consequence of the statement.

Result: Exactly one of the two conclusions is a certain inference from the statement, and it is the one about the public's susceptibility to novelty.