ITPEC IP October 2023 Question 28
Which of the following is an appropriate search expression for searching for information concerning “men who are younger than 20 years and men who are older than 65 years”?
Explanation
Men AND (less than 20 years OR more than 65 years) — every result must be a man, and his age may fall in either of the two ranges.
Split the request into its conditions. "Men" applies to every result, so it is joined with AND. The two age ranges are alternatives: a man qualifies if he is under 20 or if he is over 65, so they are joined with OR inside parentheses. The everyday "and" in "men younger than 20 and men older than 65" lists two groups to be collected together, which is a logical OR.
Answer (b)
Why not others:
- •(a) — AND between the ages demands someone under 20 and over 65 at the same time, so it finds nobody
- •(c) — the inner AND is always false, so the expression reduces to Men and returns men of every age
- •(d) — OR with Men returns every man, plus women in either age range
Key rule: AND narrows (every condition must hold), OR widens (any one is enough); two groups collected together in everyday speech are an OR, and parentheses fix which operator applies first.
Basic Theory · AI-written, may contain errors
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