International Law

Jumping to conclusions!

Image via Wikipedia

Diane Levin has a neat post about logical reasoning - and no I won't tell yo my score, although if you know that I favour using a logic, called intuitionistic  logic, which does not have (p or not p) as axiom, you can guess my score fairly accurately. 

"Last week I posed a challenge to my readers: to have a go at "The Cash Register Exercise", an uncritical inference test.

I promised to divulge the correct answers yesterday, but unfortunately circumstances intervened and prevented me from doing so, and so, with my apologies, I post them today.

For those of you who missed last week's post, I repeat the instructions and the exercise here: To complete the exercise, read the following story.

Below it are 12 statements about the story. After you read the story, determine whether each of the 12 statements is T - true; F - false ; or ? - you do not have enough information to determine whether the statement is true or false Allow yourself no more than 5 minutes to complete the exercise.

Ready?

Here goes: The Cash Register Exercise The Story A businessman had just turned off the lights in the store when a man appeared and demanded money. The owner opened a cash register. The contents of the cash register were scooped up, and the man sped away. A member of the police force was notified promptly.

12 Statements about the Story

1. A man appeared after the owner had turned off his store lights.
2. The robber was a man.
3. The man did not demand money.
4. The man who opened the cash register was the owner.
5. The store owner scooped up the contents of the cash register and ran away.
6. Someone opened a cash register.
7. After the man who demanded the money scooped up the contents of the cash register, he ran away.
8. While the cash register contained money, the story does not state how much.
9. The robber demanded money of the owner.
10. It was broad daylight when the man appeared.
11. The story concerns a series of events in which only three persons are referred to: the owner of the store, a man who demanded money, and a member of the police force.
12. The following events in the story are true: someone demanded money, a cash register was opened, its contents were scooped up, and a man dashed out of the store.

Full post as published by Misleading Advertising Law on October 14, 2008 (boomark / email).