Q19 - Marc: The fact that the people

[camerojg]

Although I managed to correctly select D for this problem, I did so with hardly any confidence. Basically I worked my way through the problem purely by eliminating wrong answers, and then selected D based on a "gut" feeling (it looked[i] the least wrong)[/i]. Here was my thinking process for the wrong answers...

First of all, we're looking for an claim that Marc and Robert would both agree with, as supported by their dialogue with one another.

A) There's no real evidence that their country currently faces troubling times, nor do I see any support for the country underrating past problems. Having nostalgia might even prove that they don't underrate past problems.
B) I'm not given indication that the people are looking back in search of present-day solutions, so I eliminate this one quickly.
C) While Marc might agree that the country made mistakes in the past ("regret the recent revolution"), neither speaker gives me an indication that looking to the past for solutions will lead to the same old mistakes.
E) Robert might agree with this, as he thinks the people are nostalgic for the distant past rather than the recent past. I don't know, however, whether Marc would agree with the claim in E.


I broke D down into two parts and tried to find evidence from both Marc and Robert that supported each part:

"Are concerned with the country's current situation..."
Marc: "...they regret the recent revolution."
Robert: "this indicates that although they are troubled..."

"This is evidenced by their nostalgia"
Marc: "The fact that the people of our country look back on the past with a great deal of nostalgia..."
Robert: "They are not nostalgic for the recent past, but for the distant past..."


I would love to hear about a more efficient approach to solving this problem. Thanks in advance!

[chike_eze]

Although I managed to correctly select D for this problem, I did so with hardly any confidence. Basically I worked my way through the problem purely by eliminating wrong answers, and then selected D based on a "gut" feeling (it looked[i] the least wrong)[/i].

["Chike" Likes this]

I like this strategy for those 2-3 really tough questions in every LR. I've gone through a few of em where I got to the right answer through Process of elimination. "Okay, I can eliminate A-D because of XYZ, E has all the right things -- can't say for sure why it is right, but the others are more wrong. Boom! pick E"

I think as we do more PTs, we'll continue to develop our gut feeling for the right answer. So it's not that you picked an answer based on pure intuition, but rather you used solid methods to eliminate as many options as possible. At that point, would re-reading the entire passage help? Probably not -- so maybe if you're faced with a tough Necessary assumption question, you're down to 2 or 3 options, and only one option uses "moderate" language like "some", "at least one" etc -- then that's the one you choose!

This is no one-size-fit-all solution, but I think it is a good strategy for the really tough questions. And yes, I'm talking about those questions that take 3+ minutes to fully understand the reasoning.

[giladedelman]

I would go even further, folks -- getting rid of the four "wrongest" answers is the BEST way to deal with challenging LR questions! In fact, I often say that the way to really become a master at LR is to become a master of identifying the wrong answers more so than the right ones.

So, great explanation: there are four answers here that have zero support. On the other hand, Marc pretty much says (D) using different words, while Robert says that the people's nostalgia "indicates that ... they are troubled" -- so we have support for both arguers agreeing that the nostalgia evidences concern for the present.

Thanks for posting!