Direction: In the question below are given two statements followed by two…

2026

Direction: In the question below are given two statements followed by two conclusions numbered I and II. You have to take the given statements to be true even if they seem to be at variance with commonly known facts. Read all the conclusions and then decide which of the given conclusions logically follows from the given statements disregarding commonly known facts.

Statement:

Only few woods are clerks.

Only few woods are flowers.

Conclusion:

I. Some flowers are woods.

II. All woods can be flowers.

  1. A.

    Only I follows

  2. B.

    Only II follows

  3. C.

    Either I or II follows

  4. D.

    Neither I nor II follows

Attempted by 18 students.

Show answer & explanation

Correct answer: A

Concept

A statement of the form 'Only few X are Y' asserts a partial overlap between X and Y: some X are Y, and — because of 'only few' — some X are also not Y. Its valid immediate inference is the converse, 'Some Y are X' (a particular affirmative always converts to another particular affirmative). But the same restriction rules out any 'All X are Y' or 'All X can be Y' possibility, since it has already fixed that some members of X definitely fall outside Y.

Application

  1. Statement 1 ('Only few woods are clerks') introduces clerks, a term that appears in neither conclusion, so it plays no part in checking conclusion I or II.

  2. Statement 2 ('Only few woods are flowers') is the only statement linking woods and flowers: it fixes a partial overlap between the two groups — some woods are flowers, and some woods are not flowers.

  3. Applying the conversion rule to statement 2 gives 'Some flowers are woods' directly — exactly what conclusion I states, so conclusion I is a guaranteed outcome of the given statement.

  4. Conclusion II claims woods can all be flowers. Statement 2 has already fixed that some woods are not flowers, so the 'all can be' possibility is ruled out — conclusion II is not guaranteed.

Cross-check

Take Woods = {a, b, c}, Flowers = {a, b}, Clerks = {c, d}: statement 2 holds because woods and flowers overlap only on a and b, leaving c a wood that is not a flower. In this picture, 'Some flowers are woods' is true (a and b are both woods and flowers), matching conclusion I, while 'All woods can be flowers' fails because c is a wood but never a flower — confirming conclusion I holds and conclusion II cannot.

Result

So only conclusion I follows.

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