For exactly ten years, it has been against the law to bungee-jump in New York State. All members of the Rubberband Club must live in New York State, and must have bungee-jumped at least once in the last two years. The Rubberband Club is currently taking applications for new members.
Which one of the following necessarily follows from the information presented above?
A. Every current member of the Rubberband Club has bungee-jumped outside of New York.
(A) is incorrect, because any current member could have bungee-jumped in New York, albeit illegally, without ever bungee-jumping anywhere else. The fact that something is against the law does not mean that it cannot and will not ever happen. The Club rule requires a member to have bungee-jumped at least once within the past two years; it does not require him to have done so legally.
The stimulus seems to set forth three specific conditions that may be important:
- when the member (current or prospective) bungee-jumped;
- where the member bungee-jumped; and
- whether he did so legally.
For a question like this, it is constructive to read the answer choice as a rule and then ask if it is possible that there is an exception. For choice (A), is it possible that there is a current member of the club who has never bungee-jumped outside of New York? The fact that every member must have bungee-jumped at least once within the last two years means that if they did so in New York, it was illegal. There could be members of the club who have only bungee-jumped in New York; whether they did so legally is outside the scope of the statement in choice (A).
B. No one currently applying for membership in the Rubberband Club has legally bungee-jumped in New York.
Is it possible that someone currently applying for membership has legally bungee-jumped in New York? Yes; (B) is incorrect because it is possible for a prospective member to have bungee-jumped legally in New York more than ten years ago, and then bungee-jumped again within the last two years, either illegally in New York or legally elsewhere.
C. The current members of the Rubberband Club have bungee-jumped illegally at least once.
Is it possible that no current member of the Club has ever bungee-jumped illegally? Yes; (C) is incorrect because they could all have done all of their recent bungee-jumping outside New York, and any of their New York bungee-jumping before it was outlawed. The club rules require the members to live in New York, not to bungee-jump there.
D. Current members of the Rubberband Club who have never bungee-jumped outside of New York have broken the law in New York.
Is it possible that any current member who has never bungee-jumped outside of New York has not broken the law in New York? No; (D) is correct. Anyone who is a current member of the Rubberband Club has to have bungee-jumped at least once in the past two years. Any member who has never bungee-jumped outside of New York has to have bungee-jumped in New York. Therefore, since they must have bungee-jumped within the past two years, and can only have done so in New York where it has been illegal throughout that time, they must have broken the law.
E. The Rubberband Club does not include any members who have bungee-jumped legally in New York.
Is it possible that there are members of the Rubberband Club who have bungee-jumped legally in New York? Yes; (E) is incorrect because the Club could include members who bungee-jumped in New York before it was outlawed, and bungee-jumped elsewhere within the past two years.
