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GATE 2023 MN – Question 6

General Aptitude · Analytical Aptitude: Logical Reasoning, Deduction and Analogy · 2 marks · Multiple choice

Elvesland is a country that has peculiar beliefs and practices. They express almost all their emotions by gifting flowers. For instance, if anyone gifts a white flower to someone, then it is always taken to be a declaration of one’s love for that person. In a similar manner, the gifting of a yellow flower to someone often means that one is angry with that person.

Based only on the information provided above, which one of the following sets of statement(s) can be logically inferred with certainty?
(i) In Elvesland, one always declares one’s love by gifting a white flower.
(ii) In Elvesland, all emotions are declared by gifting flowers.
(iii) In Elvesland, sometimes one expresses one’s anger by gifting a flower that is not yellow.
(iv) In Elvesland, sometimes one expresses one’s love by gifting a white flower.

  1. only (ii)
  2. (i), (ii) and (iii)
  3. (i), (iii) and (iv)
  4. only (iv)

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Correct answer: (D) only (iv)

Explanation

A white flower is interpreted as a declaration of love, but that does not establish that every declaration of love must use a white flower: (i) reverses the implication. “Almost all” does not justify replacing the description with the universal “all” in (ii). Yellow often signalling anger also gives no rule for non-yellow flowers, so (iii) is unsupported.

In the passage's ordinary description of actual flower-giving practices, white flowers sometimes express love, giving **(iv) only, D**.

This last inference uses the contextual existence of the practice. A bare universal conditional about a colour, considered alone in formal logic, would not prove that anyone ever gives that colour of flower.

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