Customs Officer Exam Prep

Answer: A - This is an example of a test question with a negative lead-in statement. It asks for the conclusion that is NOT supported by the paragraph. That means that four of the statements are valid conclusions from the paragraph while one is not. Response B (some messages that people would never say face-to-face are sent in e-mail messages) is a valid conclusion because it restates a fact given in the last sentence of the paragraph. Response E (some e-mail messages contain information that would be omitted from formal writing) is valid because it restates the other fact in the last sentence of the paragraph.

The next-to-last sentence in the paragraph is the source of both response C (some e-mail messages have been requested as part of investigations) and response D (e-mail messages have not been exempted from investigations). Both of these choices restate information in that sentence, based on the fact that access to e-mail messages was sought and granted. This leaves only the first option, response A (Some e-mail messages that have been requested as part of investigations have contained messages that would never be said faceto-face). This is the only choice that does NOT represent a valid conclusion, because even though we know from the paragraph that there is a group of e-mail messages that are requested in investigations and also that there is a group of messages that contain information that people would not say face-to-face, there is nothing that says that these groups overlap. We simply do not know.