RC- infer problem

[YashuY968]

Hi, instructors

I have read that a method about RC that have an answer in your mind before you see the choices. I wonder do I need to use this method to solve infer and detailed problems. For example, it can be inferred that the author would be agree with which of the following?

I bought the ESR and it showed that my RC infer question got zero score. I had done all questions in OG and because I did it before, now when I do these questions again, I know the correct answer. I feel that I can't learn new things from it. Can you give some advice about how to improve?

Thanks

[StaceyKoprince]

Note: This question should probably go in the General Verbal Questions folder, not here (this folder is for overall study strategy). I'll give you a short answer here; if you'd like to discuss further, please post in the General Verbal Questions folder (or another relevant Verbal folder if you want to ask about a specific Verbal problem from the OG, our CATs, or other sources of ours).

It's easier to use the "predict an answer" step for specific detail questions. Here, your task is to find a particular detail in the passage, and then find that same detail articulated in the correct answer.

It's more complicated to predict an answer on inference questions due to the way these questions work.

Here, your goal is to deduce something that must be true from the given evidence / facts in the passage. The passage doesn't explicitly state this thing...but it almost does, really.

For example, if chocolate is my favorite flavor of ice cream...what else must be true?

That I like chocolate in general? Or ice cream in general? Nope, I might only like chocolate ice cream and no other form of chocolate or ice cream. This kind of an answer is called a Real World trap. In the real world, someone might infer this, but it's not a "true" GMAT inference.

What is a true GMAT inference? Something like this: Vanilla is not my favorite flavor of ice cream. This must be true, since chocolate ice cream is my favorite.
Or: I have tried chocolate ice cream at least once.
Or: I have tried at least one other flavor of ice cream (since my sentence gives a comparison, favorite). Also, I didn't like that other flavor as much as I like chocolate ice cream.

We sometimes call this "the flip"—I tell you something and you just flip that fact around to tell me something else that has to be true. Chocolate ice cream is my favorite flavor...so vanilla ice cream is not.

Here's an example of this on an OG question:
#480 from the Milankovitch passage

The question asks what would be less useful to researchers. Paragraph 3 talks about two advantages (or useful things). If these two things are advantages, or useful, then it would be less useful if you didn't have one of them. (And that's what the correct answer does. The second advantage is about having a "more continuous record than" the record "from rocks on land"—and the correct answer says that the record "had far more gaps in its sequence than the record taken from rocks on land."

If it's an advantage for one set of data points (the "record") to be more continuous than another set of data points, then it would be less useful if that first set of data points were less continuous (or had "more gaps in its sequence").

When you go back to review those OG questions, your goal isn't to be able to get to the right answer (especially when you already know what the right answer is! ). Your goal is to be able to articulate the reasoning behind the right answer. Can you explain how "the flip" works for each of those OGs?

Recommendation: If you think the answer is Yes, try explaining out loud. Pretend you're trying to explain to someone who doesn't understand (or who thinks that a different answer is the correct one). If you are confident in your explanation, you'll hear it when you're talking aloud. And if you're not confident, you'll hear that too...and then you'll know you have some more thinking to do to really understand why that answer is the correct one.

If you want more examples of problems with a teacher talking through how to do an inference question, take a look here:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/gmat/blog ... rehension/

You can also search our blog for the word inference (or for inference and RC).