by ptewarie Mon Sep 09, 2013 6:22 pm
Best way to approach these problems is quickly identifying it to be a method of argument question before attacking the question.
Once you do that, few things should come to mind that are commonly employed techniques authors use to promote their argument:
1. Evidence
2. Counter evidence
3. Analogy
4. Hypothesis
5. Consequence
6. Disproving
7. Concluding
In addition, be in the look out for :
1. "some people claim".
2. "Critics"
3. "It is often said that"
Or anything that shows an opinion by another entity besides the author. Just like in reading comp, whenever another author is introduced, the author will most likely disagree by using any of the techniques in the list mentioned above.
( NOTE: THIS IS KEY!)
Look for these things and just like you would in parallel reasoning, abstract it in your mind.
Let's go through sentence-by-sentence:
1: Some people believe something( Hypothesis)
--> ( Bingo! I can probably predict author will disagree)
2: If so...( Consequence #1 of hypothesis)
3: Since...( Consequence #2 of hypothesis)
4. But because ...( Weakening of Consequence #2 )
5. odds are slim ( Unlikely that Hypothesis is likely)
So basically, the author shows that a hypothesis is unlikely to be true because one of its consequences is unlikely to be true.
Let's scan answer choice:
1. "because event has not occurred, event has low probability of occurring".
The first part works(consequence #2 has not occured), but the second sentence says that the "event"(consequence #2) has low prob. of occurring. This is wrong, because the author infers from Consequence #2 not occurring(event) that the original hypothesis is unlikely to occur.
This can be tricky, but if you truly dissected each sentence, it should be a breeze to see why this is false.
B. Just wrong. The conclusion( that hypothesis is unlikely to occur) does not contradict any of the premises of the argument accepts. As a matter of fact, it agrees with them.
C. "cannot ever be made". Hold on, the author said it can't be made in this case not "ever" in other instances.
D. "since event has not taken place that is taken to be likely for a given hypothesis has not occurred, the hypothesis is proably false.
Could not have said it better. This is a perfect match,
E. Noting that a consequence has not occurred is not the same as "making a prediction on established human tendencies". Also, this answer choice is too vague and does not even address any of the single strategies we previously mentioned( not even that the author disagrees with the hypothesis)