Thursday with Ron 06-02-11 RC Inference and Suggestion

[samwong]

Hi Ron,

In the study hall on 06-02-11 Reading Comprehension Inference and Suggestion, you said there are 2 kinds of correct inferences:

#1) Statements that can be rigorously proved from the information at hand.

#2) Statements that cannot be rigourously proved, but for which it would be absoutely ridculous for them to be false.

Is #1 apply only to RC question stem that contain “infer / suggest” and #2 to RC question stem that contain “most STRONGLY suggested”? Or can both #1 and #2 be used in either question stem?

I know #1 is also true for Critical Reasoning Inference, but is #2 also true for CR Inference?

Thank you.

[RonPurewal]

i don't think i've ever seen "most strongly suggests" in a RC problem.

in RC you basically have ...

1/
"it can be inferred / the passage suggests"
here, the answers will usually just "flip" a statement from the passage. (e.g., if the passage says my brother is taller than me, the "inference" might be i'm shorter than my brother... or, at the very most, my brother has to duck under some objects that i can walk under without ducking.)

2/
"according to the passage / the passage indicates"
here, the answers will repeat ideas from the passage--but in different words.

in retrospect, the thing you've labeled #2 is mostly a CR thing (even though i may have presented it in a lesson on RC).

[RonPurewal]

what's more important, though, is for you to reach a point where you think of your #1 and your #2 as the same thing. they shouldn't seem different to you-- they're both "things that have to be true". (remember, this is NOT a test of formal logic!)