RAS question
Statement: 'All students who study regularly pass the examination.' Ramesh failed the examination. Which of the following can be concluded?
Correct answer: (A) Ramesh did not study regularly.
Since every student who studies regularly passes the examination, Ramesh's failure means he did not study regularly.
Explanation
The statement gives a conditional rule: regular study implies passing the examination. The cited Cornell Nuprl theorem states the contrapositive form: if proposition P implies proposition Q, then not Q implies not P. Apply that structure here by taking P as "Ramesh studied regularly" and Q as "Ramesh passed the examination". Because Ramesh failed, the condition "not Q" is present; therefore, the valid conclusion is "not P", meaning Ramesh did not study regularly. The other options introduce causes or qualities that the statement never mentions, so they may be possible in ordinary life but they do not follow from the given logical rule.
Why the other options are wrong
- (B) The statement links regular study with passing, but says nothing about intelligence, so Ramesh's failure cannot prove that he is not intelligent.
- (C) The difficulty level of the examination is not part of the conditional rule, so it cannot be inferred from Ramesh's failure.
- (D) Illness during the examination is an external explanation not supplied by the statement, so it is only speculation.
Concept
This tests contrapositive reasoning in syllogism-style logical deduction. It recurs in RAS reasoning because candidates must separate what strictly follows from a statement from plausible but unsupported explanations.