crunchboss wrote:
There are various versions of these questions available across the forums, but this is the one that actually comes in GMAT prep question Pack 1 -
Historian: In the Drindian Empire, censuses were conducted annually to determine the population of each village.
Village census records for the last half of the 16005 are remarkably complete. This very completeness makes one point stand out; in five different years, villages overwhelmingly reported significant population declines. Tellingly, each of those five years immediately followed an increase in a certain Drindian tax. This tax, which was assessed on villages, was computed by the central government using the annual census figures. Obviously,
whenever the tax went up, villages had an especially powerful economic incentive to minimize the number of people they recorded; and concealing the size of a village's population from government census takers would have been easy. Therefore, the reported declines probably did not happen.
Therefore, the reported declines probably did not happen.A) The first presents a finding to support the position the historian seeks to establish ; the second is a consideration that has been used to argue against that position.
B) The first provides a context for certain evidence that supports the position that the historian seeks to establish ; the second is the judgment advanced to support that position.
C) The first is a position that the historian seeks to establish ; the second is evidence that has been used to argue against that position.
D) The first is an assumption that the historian explicitly makes in support of a certain position ; the second is that position.
E) The first is the claim that the historian rejects ; the second is a conclusion drawn to justify that rejection.
The Official answer to this question is B. I am still not convinced with the OA.
While researching for basic concepts I stumbled upon the
magoosh blog, which says that-
Keep in mind the huge difference between evidence and a conclusion or position. Evidence is always fact, stone cold fact — “Unemployment numbers rose“, “This company bought that company“, “this medicine has such-and-such side effects.” Sometimes evidence is given as something one of the voices in the argument “says” or “points out.” Evidence is always about what actually happened in the objective world: in most arguments, the evidence itself is beyond dispute, and what the argument is about is how to interpret the evidence.
A conclusion is an interpretation, a deduction, based on the evidence. Someone else who accepts the evidence may or may not accept a given conclusion based on the evidence. Look for signal words, such as since, because, therefore, “we can conclude that“, etc.
A position is any opinion or point of view someone might hold — “I think Q is right” or “I think people who think Q is right are crazy!” or “People who dismiss the believers of Q are being unfair.” — those are positions. Anything that is an opinion or a judgment based on the evidence is a position: in particular, the conclusion of the argument is the position that the argument as a whole takes.
Based on the above can we say that Position is a kind of Intermediate Conclusion, not the final or main conclusion.
Please help me in his question and also in discovering one more term "Judgement" in context to GMAT reasoning.
Dear
crunchboss,
I'm happy to respond, my friend.
I will request that when you post a question for my review, please take care to make sure it is posted without errors. This adds unnecessary difficulties into feedback process.
First, I will say that there's not really a distinction between a "
position" and a "
conclusion" --- these words can be used more or less interchangeably. Similarly, they are more or less interchangeable with "
judgment." All of these mean something that one person with one point of view thinks. They are all different from evidence, which is the material beyond dispute, the material about which everyone is in agreement.
In this argument, the first bold statement is: "
Village census records for the last half of the 1600's are remarkably complete." This is evidence. This is a factual and unambiguous. Anyone can do an see this complete list of census records. This is beyond dispute. Notice, this is not evidence that supports the argument: the next sentence is really the evidence for the arguments. This sentence provides what we might call background information.
BTW, the word "
finding" is close to evidence: it is something that anyone simply would find when they are looking in the right place.
The second bold statement is: "
[Obviously,] whenever the tax went up, villages had an especially powerful economic incentive to minimize the number of people they recorded." The word "
obviously" is not part of the bold statement, but I include it because it is word used rhetorically to bolster a claim that someone is making. This statement is not unambiguous fact: this is someone's interpretation of what has happened. This is a claim, a position, a conclusion, a judgment, an argument. Often, the GMAT will use the word "
conclusion" to mean the biggest claim of the argument, and will use one of these other terms to distinguish a smaller claim from this. Arguments in the real world are not so simple, but the cookbook arguments of GMAT CR follow this pattern.
Now, we can look at the argument. Here are the statements about the first BF statement, which is a totally factual statement that provides background for the evidence most relevant to the argument.
A)
The first presents a finding to support the position the historian seeks to establish = seems reasonable
B)
The first provides a context for certain evidence that supports the position that the historian seeks to establish = seems reasonable
C)
The first is a position that the historian seeks to establish =
NO! D)
The first is an assumption that the historian explicitly makes in support of a certain position =
NO! E)
The first is the claim that the historian rejects =
NO! Something factual and unambiguous cannot be a position, an assumption, or a claim.
Now, look at what is said about the second statement, which an assumption, a claim, a position, that the historian takes in supporting his main conclusion.
A) ...
the second is a consideration that has been used to argue against that position. =
NO, this consideration
supports the historian's main conclusion.
B) ...
the second is the judgment advanced to support that position. = seems reasonable
C) ...
the second is evidence that has been used to argue against that position. =
NO, this is NOT evidence.
D) ...
the second is that position. = seems reasonable, but doesn't work with first part.
E) ...
the second is a conclusion drawn to justify that rejection. =
NO, describes a completely different kind of argument
The only choice that is plausible for both is
(B).
Does all this make sense?
Mike