NMAT 2026 Quiz 24: Conclusion

Q1. Statement: From the start of next year, the state transport department will require every commercial truck to be fitted with a device that prevents it from exceeding 80 kmph on highways. Conclusions: I. Most commercial trucks currently exceed 80 kmph on highways. II. The speed restriction will reduce the number of highway fatalities. Only conclusion I follows Only conclusion II follows Either I or II follows Neither I nor II follows Both I and II follow Correct Option D … Explanation: The statement only says a new rule will be introduced. It gives no information about how many trucks currently exceed 80 kmph. A regulation can be imposed even if only a few vehicles break the limit, so Conclusion I does not follow. Conclusion II predicts an effect of the rule (fewer fatalities). The statement says nothing about accident data or the rule's outcomes, so this is speculation. Option A wrongly accepts the assumption about current behaviour. Option B wrongly accepts a predicted outcome as certain. Option C is meant for complementary pairs, and these two conclusions are not complementary. Hence, option D. Q2. Statement: A consignment clears customs only if all of its documents have been verified. The consignment from Rampur cleared customs on Tuesday. Conclusions: I. All the documents of the Rampur consignment were verified. II. Every consignment whose documents have all been verified clears customs. Only conclusion I follows Only conclusion II follows Either I or II follows Neither I nor II follows Both I and II follow Correct Option A … Explanation: "X only if Y" means that if X happens, Y must be true. Here, clearing customs requires that all documents were verified. The Rampur consignment cleared customs, so all its documents must have been verified, and Conclusion I follows. Conclusion II reverses the condition. It treats document verification as sufficient for clearance, but the statement makes it only necessary. Other requirements may also have to be met. Options B and E accept this reversed, invalid inference. Option D ignores the valid deduction in Conclusion I. Hence, option A. Q3. Statement: Skyline Air hires only those pilots who have logged at least 1,000 flight hours. Some of the pilots hired by Skyline Air have served in an air force. Conclusions: I. Some pilots who have served in an air force have logged at least 1,000 flight hours. II. A pilot who has logged fewer than 1,000 flight hours has not been hired by Skyline Air. Only conclusion I follows Only conclusion II follows Either I or II follows Neither I nor II follows Both I and II follow Correct Option E … Explanation: Every pilot hired by Skyline Air has logged at least 1,000 hours. Some of these hired pilots served in an air force, so those air-force pilots must have logged at least 1,000 hours, and Conclusion I follows. Conclusion II is the contrapositive of the hiring rule: if being hired requires 1,000+ hours, then a pilot with fewer than 1,000 hours cannot have been hired. So Conclusion II also follows. Options A and B each miss one valid deduction. Option D rejects both, even though each is logically certain. Hence, option E. Q4. Statement: After a coffee chain raised the price of its large cup by 10 percent, the number of large cups it sold each week fell by 4 percent. Conclusions: I. The chain's weekly revenue from large cups fell. II. The chain's weekly revenue from large cups rose. Only conclusion I follows Only conclusion II follows Either I or II follows Neither I nor II follows Both I and II follow Correct Option B … Explanation: Revenue = price × quantity. The new revenue is 1.10 × 0.96 = 1.056 times the old revenue, which is an increase of 5.6 percent. So weekly revenue from large cups definitely rose, and Conclusion II follows. Conclusion I contradicts this calculation. Option A comes from noticing the fall in sales without accounting for the larger price rise. Option C does not apply, because the outcome can be calculated exactly rather than being one of two possibilities. Hence, option B. Q5. Statement: A study of 2,000 adults found that those who sleep at least seven hours a night scored higher, on average, on a memory test than those who sleep fewer than seven hours. Conclusions: I. Adults who sleep fewer than seven hours a night would improve their memory test scores if they slept longer. II. Some adults who sleep fewer than seven hours a night scored higher on the test than some adults who sleep seven hours or more. Only conclusion I follows Only conclusion II follows Either I or II follows Neither I nor II follows Both I and II follow Correct Option D … Explanation: The study only shows a correlation between sleep duration and average scores. Conclusion I makes a causal claim (sleeping longer would raise scores), which an observational comparison of averages cannot establish. Other factors may explain the difference. Conclusion II is also not guaranteed. A difference in averages tells us nothing about whether individual scores in the two groups overlap. Every short sleeper might have scored below every long sleeper. Option A mistakes correlation for causation. Option B assumes overlapping scores that the data do not confirm. Hence, option D. Q6. Statement: Last year, the infection rate at Medanta Hospital was not lower than the infection rate at Apollo Hospital. Conclusions: I. The infection rate at Apollo Hospital was lower than that at Medanta Hospital. II. The two hospitals had equal infection rates. Only conclusion I follows Only conclusion II follows Either I or II follows Neither I nor II follows Both I and II follow Correct Option C … Explanation: "Medanta's rate was not lower than Apollo's" means Medanta ≥ Apollo. That leaves two possibilities: Medanta's rate was higher (Apollo's was lower, Conclusion I), or the rates were equal (Conclusion II). Exactly one of these must be true, but we cannot tell which. This makes I and II a complementary pair. Options A and B each pick one possibility without justification. Option E is impossible, because the rates cannot be both equal and unequal. Option D ignores that one of the two must hold. Hence, option C. Q7. Statement: Most of the residents of Geeta Colony own a car, and most of the residents of Geeta Colony own a bicycle. Conclusions: I. Some residents of Geeta Colony own both a car and a bicycle. II. Most residents of Geeta Colony own both a car and a bicycle. Only conclusion I follows Only conclusion II follows Either I or II follows Neither I nor II follows Both I and II follow Correct Option A … Explanation: "Most" means more than half. If more than 50 percent own a car and more than 50 percent own a bicycle, the two groups together exceed 100 percent, so they must overlap. At least some residents own both, and Conclusion I follows. Conclusion II does not follow. For example, if 60 percent own a car and 60 percent own a bicycle, the overlap could be as small as 20 percent, which is not "most." Options B and E wrongly treat the guaranteed overlap as a majority. Option D misses the certain overlap. Hence, option A. Q8. Statement: In a certain city, electric vehicles made up 12 percent of all new vehicle registrations in 2022 and 18 percent in 2024. The total number of new vehicle registrations in the city was higher in 2024 than in 2022. Conclusions: I. More electric vehicles were registered in the city in 2024 than in 2022. II. More non-electric vehicles were registered in the city in 2024 than in 2022. III. The number of electric vehicles registered in 2024 was more than 50 percent higher than the number registered in 2022. Only I follows Only I and III follow Only II follows Only II and III follow All three follow Correct Option B … Explanation: Let the 2022 total be T1 and the 2024 total be T2, where T2 > T1. EVs went from 0.12T1 to 0.18T2. Since both the share and the total increased, the EV count rose, so Conclusion I follows. The ratio 0.18T2 / 0.12T1 = 1.5 × (T2/T1), which is greater than 1.5 because T2 > T1. So EV registrations rose by more than 50 percent, and Conclusion III follows. Non-electric vehicles went from 0.88T1 to 0.82T2. This rises only if T2 is at least about 7.3 percent larger than T1, which is not given, so Conclusion II does not necessarily follow. Options C, D and E wrongly include Conclusion II. Option A misses Conclusion III. Hence, option B. Q9. Statement: A software company announced that its latest update fixed 90 percent of the bugs that users had reported in the previous version. Within a week of the update's release, users reported 40 bugs that had not been reported before. Conclusions: I. Some of the bugs reported in the previous version remain unfixed. II. The latest update made the software less reliable than the previous version. III. The updated version contains fewer bugs than the previous version did. Only II follows Only III follows Only I and III follow Only II and III follow Only I follows Correct Option E … Explanation: If the update fixed 90 percent of the reported bugs, the remaining 10 percent are still unfixed, so Conclusion I follows. Conclusions II and III both compare the total number of bugs in the two versions. We do not know how many bugs were originally reported, and we do not know whether the 40 new bugs were introduced by the update or simply existed before without being noticed. So we cannot tell whether the software became more reliable (III) or less reliable (II). Options A, B, C and D each include at least one of these unsupported comparisons. Hence, option E. Q10. Statement: At the end of August, a city's main reservoir held 50 percent of its capacity; at the end of September, it held 65 percent. Conclusions: I. Rainfall over the reservoir's catchment area was heavier in September than in August. II. The reservoir will hold more water at the end of October than it did at the end of September. III. Water consumption in the city fell in September. None follows Only I follows Only II follows Only III follows Only I and II follow Correct Option A … Explanation: The statement only tells us that the reservoir level rose during September. Conclusion I compares rainfall in September and August, but the August data cover only its end-point level, not the inflow during August. The rise could also be due to reduced outflow or water transfers. Conclusion II extrapolates a past trend into the future, which is unsupported. Conclusion III gives one possible cause of the rise, but rainfall or other inflows could equally explain it. None of the three is a necessary inference. Options B, C, D and E each accept at least one speculative explanation or prediction. Hence, option A. Q11. Statement: Every room in the institute in which radioactive materials are handled has a lead-lined door. No room with a lead-lined door is used as a classroom. Room 12 is used as a classroom. Conclusions: I. Room 12 does not have a lead-lined door. II. Radioactive materials are not handled in Room 12. III. No classroom in the institute is a room in which radioactive materials are handled. IV. At least one room in the institute does not have a lead-lined door. Only I and II follow Only II and III follow Only I, II and III follow Only I, III and IV follow All four follow Correct Option E … Explanation: The chain of reasoning is: radioactive room → lead-lined door → not a classroom. Room 12 is a classroom, so it cannot have a lead-lined door (contrapositive of the second statement), and Conclusion I follows. Since every radioactive room has a lead-lined door and Room 12 does not, radioactive materials are not handled in Room 12, so Conclusion II follows. More generally, any radioactive room has a lead-lined door and so cannot be a classroom, which means no classroom is a radioactive room, and Conclusion III follows. Room 12 is a room in the institute without a lead-lined door, so at least one such room exists, and Conclusion IV follows. Options A, B, C and D each leave out at least one valid deduction. Hence, option E. Q12. Statement: A firm tested a four-day working week for six months, with employees working four days instead of five and receiving the same pay as before. At the end of the trial, the firm reported that output per hour worked was higher than before the trial and that employees took fewer sick days on average than before. Conclusions: I. The firm's total output during the trial was higher than before the trial. II. Employees took fewer sick days on average during the trial than before the trial. III. Employees produced more per hour worked during the trial than they did before it. IV. The firm's labour cost for each unit of output was lower during the trial than before it. Only II follows Only I and III follow Only III follows Only II and III follow Only I, II and III follow Correct Option D … Explanation: Conclusions II and III directly restate the firm's reported findings (fewer sick days, and higher output per hour), so both follow. Conclusion I does not follow. Total output = hours worked × output per hour. Hours fell by about one-fifth, and we do not know whether the gain in hourly productivity was large enough to make up for that, so total output may have fallen. Conclusion IV fails for the same reason. Pay stayed the same, so labour cost per unit falls only if total output rose, which is not established. Options B and E wrongly include Conclusion I. Options A and C each leave out one of the restated findings. Hence, option D. Q13. A mobile-game company reported that its number of monthly active users grew by 12 percent in March, 9 percent in April and 6 percent in May, each figure being measured against the previous month. Which of the following conclusions is best supported by the statements above? The company will begin to lose monthly active users by July. The company's number of monthly active users fell between April and May. In May the company had more monthly active users than it had in either March or April. Most of the company's monthly active users in May had joined during March. The game became less popular with its players between March and May. Correct Option C … Explanation: Each month's growth figure is positive and is measured against the previous month. So the user base grew every month: March < April < May. May therefore had more monthly active users than both March and April. Option A extrapolates the slowing growth rate into a future decline, which is pure speculation. Option B confuses a lower growth rate with an actual fall in users. Option D makes a claim about when users joined that the data cannot support. Option E treats slower growth as lower popularity, even though the user base kept rising. Hence, option C. Q14. A regional blackout was traced to exactly one of three possible causes: a transformer failure, a fault in the grid's control software, or damage to a transmission cable. Had the control software been at fault, its event log would contain a fault code; the log contains none. Had a transmission cable been damaged, the line-monitoring system would have raised an alarm at the damaged section; no alarm was raised anywhere on the network. Which of the following conclusions can be drawn from the statements above? The blackout could have been avoided had the transformers been inspected more often. The blackout was caused by the failure of a transformer somewhere on the network. The control software is more reliable than the line-monitoring system. Transformer failures are the most common cause of regional blackouts. No fault in the network's own equipment contributed to the blackout. Correct Option B … Explanation: This is reasoning by elimination. The cause was exactly one of three options. A software fault would have left a fault code, and there is none, so the software is ruled out. Cable damage would have triggered an alarm, and none was raised, so cable damage is ruled out. Only transformer failure remains. Option A brings in an unsupported claim about preventing the blackout through inspections. Option C compares the reliability of two systems, which the statements never address. Option D generalises about blackouts in general from a single case. Option E contradicts the conclusion, since a transformer is part of the network's own equipment. Hence, option B. Q15. A school has two sections, A and B. Last year, the average mark of students in Section A was 80, and that of students in Section B was 60. This year, the average mark in each section was the same as last year, yet the school's overall average mark was higher than last year. The information above leads to which of the following conclusions? Section A made up a larger share of the school's students this year than it did last year. The higher overall average resulted from improved marks in at least one of the two sections. The school had more students this year than it had last year. More students were enrolled in Section B than in Section A this year. Students in Section B were taught more effectively this year than they were last year. Correct Option A … Explanation: The overall average is a weighted average of the two section averages (80 and 60). Both section averages stayed the same, so the overall average can rise only if more weight shifted to the higher-scoring Section A. In other words, Section A must have made up a larger share of the students this year. Option B contradicts the statement that both section averages were unchanged. Option C concerns the total number of students, which does not affect the weighted average. Option D cannot be determined, because a larger share for A does not tell us which section is bigger. Option E assumes better teaching in B, but B's average did not change. Hence, option A. Q16. Dietitians often claim that eating breakfast helps adults keep their weight down. To test this, researchers recruited 300 adults who normally ate breakfast and randomly assigned half of them to keep eating breakfast and half to skip it for a full year. At the end of the year, the two groups did not differ meaningfully in average body weight. Which of the following conclusions can be drawn most reliably from the information above? Skipping breakfast helps adults to lose weight. Adults who skip breakfast are just as healthy as adults who eat breakfast. The dietitians' claim about breakfast is false for every adult. Among the adults in the trial, eating breakfast did not lead to a lower average body weight than skipping it did. Eating breakfast does not affect the body weight of any individual adult. Correct Option D … Explanation: The randomised trial found no meaningful difference in average body weight between the two groups. The most reliable conclusion is therefore limited to what was measured: in this trial, eating breakfast did not produce a lower average weight than skipping it. Option A claims that skipping breakfast causes weight loss, but no such difference was found. Option B widens the claim from body weight to overall health, which was not measured. Option C overgeneralises from 300 habitual breakfast-eaters to every adult. Option E draws a conclusion about every individual from group averages, even though some individuals may have responded differently. Hence, option D. Q17. At a school, students in an optional tutoring programme improved their mathematics grades by an average of one grade, while others showed no improvement. Teachers recommended only students with regular attendance and timely assignments. Which of the following conclusions is most appropriate? Tutoring has no real effect on participants' grades. Regular attendance and timely assignments, rather than tutoring, caused the improvement. Some of the difference in improvement may be due to differences between the students rather than tutoring. Teachers should recommend the programme to all interested students, regardless of attendance. Students who did not join were less capable at mathematics than those who did. Correct Option C … Explanation: The programme admitted only students with regular attendance and timely assignments. This is selection bias: the participants were already different from the non-participants in ways that could affect improvement. So at least part of the gap may come from those differences rather than from tutoring itself. The cautious word "may" is what makes option C appropriate. Option A goes too far by ruling out any effect of tutoring. Option B goes too far in the other direction by attributing the whole improvement to student traits. Option D is a policy recommendation the data do not support. Option E assumes a difference in ability, when the stated difference is in diligence, and that is not proven either. Hence, option C. Q18. Every painting displayed in the east gallery of a museum was donated by a patron. None of the museum's donated paintings is for sale. Some of the museum's paintings are for sale. Which of the following conclusions can be drawn from these statements? Some paintings displayed in the east gallery are for sale. Every painting that is not displayed in the east gallery is for sale. Some of the museum's donated paintings are not displayed in the east gallery. Some of the museum's paintings are not displayed in the east gallery. Every painting that was not donated is for sale. Correct Option D … Explanation: The chain is: east gallery → donated → not for sale. Some paintings are for sale. Those paintings cannot be donated, so they cannot be in the east gallery. Therefore some of the museum's paintings are not displayed in the east gallery. Option A contradicts the chain, since nothing in the east gallery can be for sale. Option B wrongly reverses the logic. Paintings outside the east gallery may or may not be for sale. Option C may be true, but nothing guarantees that any donated paintings are displayed outside the east gallery. Option E is the inverse of a premise and is not implied. Hence, option D. Q19. Chemistry can be broadly divided into organic chemistry (the study of chemical compounds that contain carbon atoms) and inorganic chemistry. This is not a strict definition; some compounds, including carbon dioxide, contain carbon atoms but are considered inorganic. Organic chemistry relates to the chemistry of life because the compounds necessary for life are organic. It was, in fact, once believed that organic compounds could only be created through natural processes in the bodies of living organisms. Which of the following can be concluded from the above information? Carbon dioxide can be created by the bodies of living organisms. The bodies of living organisms do not contain any inorganic compounds. The study of compounds that contain no carbon atoms is part of inorganic chemistry. All compounds containing carbon atoms are classified as organic compounds. Organic compounds can only be produced through natural processes in living organisms. Correct Option C … Explanation: Chemistry is divided into organic and inorganic branches, and organic compounds are those containing carbon. The exception mentioned works in only one direction: some carbon-containing compounds are classed as inorganic. No compound without carbon is ever described as organic, so compounds containing no carbon must belong to inorganic chemistry. Option A is true in real life but is not stated or implied in the passage. Option B is unsupported, because the passage says only that the compounds necessary for life are organic. Option D is directly contradicted by the carbon dioxide example. Option E presents as fact what the passage calls a belief that was once held, implying it is no longer accepted. Hence, option C. Q20. A company's central server crashed, which the IT department determined was caused by either a malware attack, a hardware degradation, or a cooling system failure. A thorough diagnostic of the hardware revealed no degraded components. Furthermore, the server room's temperature logs show that the cooling system was operating at optimal levels before, during, and after the crash. Which of the following conclusions can be drawn from the statements above? The company should invest in better cybersecurity software. Malware attacks are the most common cause of server crashes. The server crash was caused by a malware attack. A cooling system failure would have caused more damage than a malware attack. The IT department is inefficient at preventing server crashes. Correct Option C … Explanation: This is reasoning by elimination. The crash had one of three causes. The hardware diagnostic found no degraded components, which rules out hardware degradation. The temperature logs show the cooling system working optimally throughout, which rules out a cooling failure. The only remaining cause is a malware attack. Option A is a recommendation rather than a conclusion drawn from the facts. Option B generalises about server crashes in general from a single incident. Option D makes an unsupported comparison of damage. Option E passes judgment on the IT department, which the statements do not support. Hence, option C.