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nonameee
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RC Life on Mars

by nonameee Mon Jul 25, 2011 8:49 am

Life on Mars

Source: Manhattan RC 4th Edition p. 123

Q5: Each of the following can be inferred from the passage EXCEPT:
...
(E) The claim that there was once water on Mars has only limited and indirect support from recent discoveries.

The 2nd paragraph focuses on whether there was once water on Mars. I understand that the author assumes a causal relationship: WATER => LIFE

What I don't understand is how it is possible that discovering geological evidence of past water activity on Mars is the DIRECT evidence of life on Mars? I thought that DIRECT evidence would be discovering actual life (or signs of past life).

Please explain.

Thank you.
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Re: RC Life on Mars

by messi10 Mon Jul 25, 2011 10:03 am

Hi,

I am assuming that you are questioning why choice D is not the right answer. Is that correct?

Choice D states that "The presence of water activity on Mars is related to the possibility of life on Mars"

There is a difference between what choice D is saying and what you are implying. You are right, there is no direct evidence and if choice D said something like that then it would have been too extreme and it could not have been inferred from the passage. But Choice D has a "soft tone". They words that make it so are: "related to the possibility" and these words are key to eliminating this answer

Regards

Sunil
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Re: RC Life on Mars

by nonameee Tue Jul 26, 2011 6:07 am

Sunil, thanks for your reply. No, I don't understand why choice (E) is incorrect. Not choice (D).

The implication that I mentioned (WATER->LIFE) is the unstated premise that the author assumes.
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Re: RC Life on Mars

by messi10 Tue Jul 26, 2011 6:43 am

But choice E is the correct answer
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Re: RC Life on Mars

by nonameee Tue Jul 26, 2011 8:40 am

Sorry, what I meant was why (E) is correct.

What I don't understand is how it is possible that discovering geological evidence of past water activity on Mars is the DIRECT evidence of life on Mars? I thought that DIRECT evidence would be discovering actual life (or signs of past life).
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Re: RC Life on Mars

by messi10 Tue Jul 26, 2011 10:44 am

Hi,

Apologies, but I am still not quite following your logic. Answer choice E does not talk about life on Mars at all. It just talks about water. That's why I got confused in the previous post as well. All the other answer choices mention life, but not E.

You cannot imply anything about life from answer choice E. So are you asking why all the other answer choices are wrong?

Also, make sure you are understanding the question:

Q. Each of the following can be inferred from the passage EXCEPT:

Rephrase

Q. Which of the following CANNOT be inferred from the passage?

So we are looking for an answer choice that is not right based on the passage

Regards

Sunil
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Re: RC Life on Mars

by nonameee Thu Jul 28, 2011 4:59 am

I'll explain my logic:

In my opinion, "Discovering geological evidence of past water activity" is the INDIRECTevidence that there was water on Mars. Therefore, we CAN infer answer choice (E).

Now, in the explanation to this question on page 123 the authors argue that "discovering geological evidence is DIRECT evidence"; therefore, this answer choice is correct.

Please explain how it is possible that "discovering geological evidence" is DIRECT (and not INDIRECT) evidence of past water activity. As I have written in my previous post, I thought that DIRECT evidence would be finding actual water on Mars or perhaps some ice.

Thank you.
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Re: RC Life on Mars

by messi10 Thu Jul 28, 2011 7:50 am

Hi,

Ok, now I understand. Apologies, but all your previous posts kept mentioning direct evidence of life, not water on Mars, so that's why I got confused.

To be honest, I have not thought about this answer choice very deeply because I had no doubt about this being the correct answer for two reasons:
    1. All other answer choices can be inferred without doubt. If you notice, they all have moderate tone and you don't need to make too many assumptions to infer them.
    2. The way the last paragraph finishes ("substantially bolster claims...") gives an indication that there is strong support for historical presence of water.


Now that you have raised the question about direct vs indirect evidence, I have had to think a little about this issue. The analogy I can think of is Dinosaurs. The geological evidence of their existence is the fossils, bones etc. Would you classify these as direct or indirect evidence? I think it is direct evidence. We don't have to make any underlying conclusions before we can infer that the fossils represent the existence of dinosaurs.

But I have used the above explanation to try and explain the point. Remember, the better way to approach this is by eliminating the incorrect answers and using the tone of the sentences or the paragraph.

Hope this helps

Regards

Sunil
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Re: RC Life on Mars

by nonameee Thu Jul 28, 2011 5:22 pm

Sunil,

Thanks a lot for your replies to both of my posts. It's really helpful.

I agree that eliminating answers is a good strategy. In this question, however, I was struggling between this answer choice and another one (the one that links water and life) and I thought that the second answer choice was better.

As to your question, discovering fossils of a dinosaur is, in my opinion, direct evidence. However, in our passage I think we are dealing with indirect evidence. That's why I thought that E could not be a correct answer.

What also supported my opinion was the fact that only two rovers discovered those formations. So the evidence was really limited.
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Re: RC Life on Mars

by tim Fri Sep 23, 2011 5:20 pm

good discussion. let us know if there are any other questions you need answered about this one..
Tim Sanders
Manhattan GMAT Instructor

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