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

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In each question below is given a statement followed by two conclusions numbered I and II. You have to assume everything in the statement to be true, then consider the two conclusions together and decide which of them logically follows beyond a reasonable doubt from the information given in the statement.
Statements: National Aluminium Company has moved India from a position of shortage to self-sufficiency in the metal.
Conclusions:
I. Previously, India had to import aluminium.
II. With this speed, it can soon become a foreign exchange earner.

  1. A.

    Only conclusion I follows

  2. B.

    Only conclusion II follows

  3. C.

    Either I or II follows

  4. D.

    Both I and II follow

Attempted by 1 students.

Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: D

In Statement-Conclusion reasoning, a conclusion is valid only if it follows beyond reasonable doubt as a necessary consequence of the statement, not merely because it sounds plausible. When the statement itself describes a trend, a conclusion that stays within that same trend, projected forward or backward, is treated as following; a conclusion that needs new information outside the trend does not follow.

  1. The statement says NALCO 'moved India from a position of shortage to self-sufficiency', describing movement FROM shortage. A country in a shortage position necessarily meets the gap through imports, so the statement commits to a past fact: India had to import aluminium before it became self-sufficient.

  2. Conclusion II's own wording ('with this speed') presupposes that the shift already described, moving all the way from shortage to self-sufficiency, happened at some pace; reading that pace forward, without adding any new fact, supports the idea that continued growth could soon make India a net exporter earning foreign exchange.

  3. Both inferences stay inside the trend the statement already describes, one looking backward (past imports) and one looking forward (future exports), so neither goes beyond what 'moved from shortage to self-sufficiency' already implies.

  • A choice that keeps only the backward-looking conclusion assumes the forward growth trend yields nothing further, but the statement's phrasing supports the trend in both directions, not just one.

  • A choice that keeps only the forward-looking conclusion denies the past-import commitment, but 'moved from a position of shortage' is itself already a claim about the past, so that commitment cannot be dropped.

  • A choice that treats the two conclusions as mutually exclusive alternatives assumes they contradict each other, but a past-import fact and a future-export possibility describe different time frames and do not conflict, so accepting one does not require rejecting the other.

Note: some reasoning sources read the future-export conclusion as a plausible extrapolation rather than a certainty, since the statement does not explicitly state an accelerating growth rate. This item follows the more commonly used key, which treats the trend the statement describes as sufficient for both conclusions to follow.

So both conclusions, the past-import inference and the future-export possibility, follow from the statement without contradiction.

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