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workout srnaga aviejay ParthSanghaviOfficial Explanation
1. The primary purpose of the passage is to
Explanation
A quick scan of the opening verbs or phrases— or a suggestion., suggest, explain, argue, imply— should eliminate choice (D), since the passage does not argue anything, but merely reports about cargo cults, the use of the term “cargo cult,” and the views of Richard Feynman.
Choice (A) can be eliminated because the author does not “offer a suggestion” anywhere (if you are going to pick an answer that says the author offered a suggestion, you need to be able to actually put your finger on the suggestion written down in the passage).
Choice (C) is too narrow and only references the first paragraph. This is the trick answer! The passage is not really about the islanders; the islanders are being used as a metaphor to talk about the scientists.
Choice (E) is offensive! Also, GMAT authors rarely try to tell anybody what to do. This author certainly does not.
The correct answer is (B), which is a very good match with paragraph 2, which contains the “twist,” and also nicely ties together the content of the entire passage. Note also that correct main idea answers often lack keywords (“cargo cults,” “science,” etc.) and therefore look “boring.” This can sometimes be used as a hint.
Answer: B
2. The passage suggests that resident of Tanna concluded that they were the "rightful owners" of the "cargo" because
Explanation
The correct answer here hinges on knowing that “incredible” means “not believable.” (In casual speech, it is used to mean “awesome,” but just as a credible story is a believable one, an incredible story is an unbelievable one, probably a lie.) The extreme word “all” completely eliminates choice (B). Sure, the cargo cult members thought that the cargo was created by deities, but all possessions? Even the stuff the islanders owned before the Westerners arrived? You don’t know that.
(C) is a twisting of language in the passage. If someone (ancestors and deities) means to give you a gift and someone else (Westerners) “steals” it, that does not mean that the gift-giver “owes you a debt.” This is a trap answer not indicated by the passage.
(D) and (E) may be true, but do not answer the question: Why did the islanders think the stuff came from deities and ancestors? Do not fallfor true or possibly true answers that do not answer the question!
Correct choice (A) is simply a sentence from the passage rewritten using synonymsl Paragraph 1 says that the members of native societies “found soldiers’ explanations of the cargo’s provenance unconvincing.” In other words, they “found stories of the goods’ actual origins to be incredible” (provenance = origin and unconvincing = incredible).
Answer: A
3. According to the information provided by the passage, which of the following would critics such as Feynman most likely describe as practitioners of "cargo cult science"?
Explanation
If you did not read all of paragraph 3 early on, you would have to go back and dig into it now. That’s fine— why waste the time earlier when you already had the main idea and you might not have gotten asked about that part anyway?
It will also be helpful here to say the answer in your own words before attacking the choices. The passage says Feynman thinks cargo cult scientists are “researchers who create the appearance of real science— even with the fastidiousness of those who create a full-size Jeep from bamboo and straw— but without an understanding of the underlying workings of real science.” You need an answer that gives an example of scientists who “create the appearance of science” but without really doing science.
Start by killing (B) and (D)— keep in mind that to be a practitioner of “cargo cult science,” you have to first be a scientist! (Feynman’s book is specifically about scientists.) (B) and (D) are not even about scientists.
Choice (A) is a twisting around of wording from elsewhere in the passage. Also, what’s wrong with creating a sufficient cause for an event? It’s not clear that this is even describing something bad.
(C) is much too broad. What is the desired phenomenon? You don’t know. A researcher who fails at creating a desired phenomenon isn’t necessarily practicing bad science— trial and error, and failure, are a normal part of science. (This is why we haven’t yet cured cancer).
(E) is correct. Someone who takes recognition for their work even though he or she knows the work is based on a flawed design is putting on a show of science without really doing science.
Answer: E
4. According to the passage, the similarity between cargo cult members and practitioners of "cargo cult science" can most appropriately be described in which of the following ways?
Explanation
This question is asking for the best description of what the islanders and the scientists from the passage have in common. Watch out for answers that are true, but don’t answer the question. (For instance, both the islanders and the scientists have arms and legs, presumably, but that is obviously not a good description of why the author wrote about both of them in the same passage.)
Choice (A) is true — the islanders do things like talk into a coconut as though it were a radio; the scientists are using rat mazes that are flawed. But this is the trap answer. Using inappropriate equipment is not the main similarity the two groups have. Paragraph 2 contains the main idea of the passage, which is exactly the similarity you are being asked about— two seemingly different groups of people share the same logical flaw, that of engaging in the superficial performance of something without the real, meaningful, underlying functionality.
Correct choice (C) doesn’t say exactly that, but “Both adhere to processes that lack scientific rigor” is a more general description of the two groups’ problems. Note that this is a rather mild and polite (not extreme) way to discuss the two groups’ flaws— rather than saying, “What you are doing is superficial and meaningless,” it says, “What you are doing is not strictly scientific.” This is a mild restatement of the main idea in paragraph 2.
Choices (B) and (D) are too extreme (it is doubtful that the scientists, at least, “refuse to accept” the scientific method, and the islanders may never have even heard of the scientific method). (D) is offensive and much too extreme.
(E) is a policy prescription not indicated by the passage, which offers no such prescriptions. GMAT authors rarely tell anybody what to do.
Answer: C
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