Claim vs Evidence vs fact vs conclusion ??????

Dear shagalo,
The words position and claim mean, for GMAT CR purposes, exactly the same thing. Anything that is based on opinion or conjecture, and certainly any prediction about the future, is a position or claim. Here are some positions or claims I could make
GMAT Club is the best way to prepare for the GMAT.
Humphrey Bogart was the greatest Hollywood actor.
Hillary Clinton will be elected President in 2016.
Shares of COKE will go over $100 before the end of 2014.
The New York Mets will win the 2014 World Series.
Each one is a position or a claim. They are not factual statements: an intelligent and reasonable person might disagree with any one of these statements. The first two are value statements --- I am assigning a value to something in the present or the past. Someone with different opinions or with access to difference evidence might assign a different value. The last three are predictions, and of course, other people may not agree with my predictions. (Unfortunately, extremely few people will agree with the last prediction! )

The first kind of claim or position, when I am assigning value to something --- that is definitely a judgment. A judgment could be a prediction, but it definitely is one way of assigning value to something (saying something is the best or the worst or the most or the least or ...)

Notice that the GMAT will NOT ask you to decide the difference between a position and judgment, or between a claim and judgment. It often will expect you to know the difference between an argument/claim/position/judgment and a piece of evidence. The former, whatever the name, is someone's opinion or is based on someone's perspective, and reasonable people can disagree. The latter is something factual and indisputable.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Mike - what is the difference between a claim (or position) vs. a conclusion ?

Dear [email protected],

I'm happy to respond.

As above, in terms of the GMAT, there's not a big difference. Any argument, anything that is not factual evidence, can be called a "claim." Any statement in the prompt that is not evidence is a claim. We always call the author's most important claim his "conclusion"; most typically, this most important claim comes at the end of the prompt passage, although sometimes it can come in other places in the prompt passage. Sometimes, if there's claim #1 in the middle of the argument, and then claim #2, the most important claim, comes at the end, we might call claim #1 something such as a "preliminary conclusion" or a "secondary conclusion that supports the main conclusion," whereas claim #2 would be the "main conclusion;" thus, it's possible to have two conclusion in a GMAT argument.

Both words have a verb form. The verb "to conclude" means that decide something, I come to a judgment about something. For example, I see A, B, and C, so I conclude P. In real life, that can be a private action: I could conclude something inside my own head and not tell anyone. By contrast, the verb "claim" explicitly means for me to tell other people about what I think. I see A, B, and C, and then I claim to my friend that P is true. If the idea is never spoken, then I have never claimed it. The two verbs differ as descriptions of real human action. Nevertheless, in the GMAT prompt passage, the passage is telling us everything, so that negates any real difference between a claim and a conclusion.

Does this make sense?
Mike

Thanks Mike this helps !

One follow up ...the difference between a claim and a premise ?

Can i say the

-- Claim that is not evidence towards a conclusion : a claim

-- Claim that is evidence towards a conclusion : a premise

Dear [email protected]

I'm happy to help.

My friend, I would explain the difference between a "premise" and a "claim."

A "premise" is a starting point in an argument. It's the place I start my argument because I expect that my listeners will already agree with this. Often, it's entirely factual. In a GMAT CR argument, the premises are the starting points that we are supposed to assume is true. In real life, someone may start an argument by saying, "Look, we agree that X is Y, so . . . " The part of his argument where he expect you already to agree is the premise.

A "claim" is a conclusion. You may not agree with my claim initially, but I hope that if I construct a persuasive argument, you will come to believe it. It is the part of the argument that the person making the argument believes, the person hearing the argument probably didn't start out believing, but the person making the arguments wants his listen to believe as a result of the argument. For GMAT CR purposes, there's not really a difference between a "claim" and "conclusion," and a "claim" could be either the main conclusion or any secondary conclusion.

Does all this make sense?
Mike

Can i explain it this way....

A claim does not have a premise supporting it

whereas

A conclusion will always have a premise supporting it

Bunuel Could you please help us understand what's the difference between a "claim" and a "position", at least in terms of GMAT CR Bold questions.
Thanks.

Please see Mike’s explanation above. It seems pretty complete.



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how is fact different from opinion? I often find it difficult to differentiate between the two.

Fact refers to something that can be verified or proved to be true, which is based on observation and research whereas opinion refers to a judgement or belief about something based on assumption and personal view.