Comcorp Shipping Clerk: Last week, no shipments of building supplies were sent out on Friday. The five specially ordered shipments...

GMAT Critical Reasoning : (CR) Questions

Source: Official Guide

Critical Reasoning

Inference

HARD

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Notes

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Comcorp Shipping Clerk: Last week, no shipments of building supplies were sent out on Friday. The five specially ordered shipments sent out last week were sent out on Thursday, and each of those specially ordered shipments consisted entirely of building supplies. Four shipments were sent to Truax Construction last week, none of which consisted of building supplies.

If the shipping clerk's statements are true, which of the following must also be true?

All of Comcorp's shipments of building supplies last week were specially ordered.

None of Comcorp's shipments sent on friday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.

None of the shipments sent by Comcorp to Truax Construction last week was specially ordered.

None of Comcorp's shipments sent on Thursday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.

All of Comcorp's shipments of building supplies last week were sent out on Thursday.

Solution

Passage Visualization

Passage Statement	Visualization and Linkage
Last week, no shipments of building supplies were sent out on Friday.	Establishes: Friday shipping constraint Friday: 0 building supply shipments Monday-Thursday: Could have building supply shipments Key insight: All building supplies must have been shipped Mon-Thu
The five specially ordered shipments sent out last week were sent out on Thursday, and each of those specially ordered shipments consisted entirely of building supplies.	Establishes: Thursday special shipment details Thursday: 5 special shipments = 5 building supply shipments These 5 are confirmed building supplies (100% composition) Pattern: Thursday had significant building supply activity
Four shipments were sent to Truax Construction last week, none of which consisted of building supplies.	Establishes: Truax Construction shipment composition Truax received: 4 shipments total Truax building supplies: 0 shipments Truax shipments: Non-building supplies only Key constraint: Truax shipments ≠ Thursday special shipments
Overall Implication	Core Pattern Revealed: The 5 Thursday special shipments (all building supplies) and the 4 Truax shipments (no building supplies) must be completely separate sets. Since Truax received no building supplies, none of their 4 shipments can overlap with Thursday's 5 building supply shipments.

Valid Inferences

Inference: None of the four shipments sent to Truax Construction were among the five specially ordered shipments sent out on Thursday.

Supporting Logic: Since the five specially ordered Thursday shipments consisted entirely of building supplies, and since none of the four Truax Construction shipments consisted of building supplies, these two groups cannot overlap. The Truax shipments (0% building supplies) are incompatible with the Thursday special shipments (100% building supplies).

Clarification Note: While we know these shipment groups are separate, we cannot determine when the Truax shipments were sent - they could have been distributed across Monday through Friday, just not overlapping with the Thursday special orders.

Answer Choices Explained

All of Comcorp's shipments of building supplies last week were specially ordered.

This goes too far beyond what we can conclude. We know that 5 specially ordered shipments on Thursday were building supplies, but we don't know if there were other building supply shipments on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday that weren't specially ordered. The argument doesn't give us complete information about all building supply shipments.

None of Comcorp's shipments sent on friday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.

We know that no building supplies were sent on Friday, and we know Truax received 4 shipments with no building supplies. However, we can't determine when the Truax shipments were sent - they could have been distributed across any days of the week, potentially including Friday, as long as they didn't contain building supplies.

None of the shipments sent by Comcorp to Truax Construction last week was specially ordered.

This must be true. We know the 5 specially ordered shipments consisted entirely of building supplies, while the 4 Truax shipments contained no building supplies at all. Since these two groups have completely incompatible characteristics (100% vs 0% building supplies), there can be no overlap between them. Therefore, none of the Truax shipments could have been among the specially ordered ones.

None of Comcorp's shipments sent on Thursday of last week was sent to Truax Construction.

While we know Thursday had 5 specially ordered building supply shipments and Truax received non-building supply shipments, we can't rule out that Truax might have received additional non-building supply shipments on Thursday beyond the 5 specially ordered ones mentioned.

All of Comcorp's shipments of building supplies last week were sent out on Thursday.

This is too strong a conclusion. We know 5 building supply shipments went out Thursday and none went out Friday, but we have no information about Monday through Wednesday. There could have been other building supply shipments on those days.

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