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605-655 (Medium)|   Bold Face CR|                              
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GMATNinja KarishmaB DmitryFarber
In statement C, I agree there is no support for 2nd BF but can we call it an intermediate conclusion? I thought that its an opinion/claim and hence an intermediate conclusion supporting the main conclusion.

Looking at the discussion it seems that an opinion itself cannot be a conclusion unless it is derived using some support or reasoning or a premise. So we should not be able to call 2nd BF a conclusion though it is an opinion.

Am I right here?
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GMATNinja KarishmaB DmitryFarber
In statement C, I agree there is no support for 2nd BF but can we call it an intermediate conclusion? I thought that its an opinion/claim and hence an intermediate conclusion supporting the main conclusion.

Looking at the discussion it seems that an opinion itself cannot be a conclusion unless it is derived using some support or reasoning or a premise. So we should not be able to call 2nd BF a conclusion though it is an opinion.

Am I right here?

Option (C) is incorrect because no support is provided for BF2. Otherwise, BF2 could be a premise or an intermediate conclusion (provided some premises support it) in that it supports the main conclusion. That is all we know for sure about it.
Since option (C) is incorrect, the only correct option is (E).
Don't try to take a call on a statement independent of the options. That is not very productive since the role a statement plays is contextual and can be viewed in multiple ways.
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Hi everyone below was my thought process can someone help where I might have gone wrong?

>I got confused between C and E, so first i was thinking to go for E but I felt a bit uneasy about only explicit conclusion.
>Because BF2 looked like compound statement carrying a subconclusion("people getting convinced that such messages are overly cautious" -> "governments message being undermined")
>Now because E said "only explicit conclusion" I decided not to go with E because there it felt there was a subconclusion
>But the problem with C was that if BF2 the way I felt is a compound statement then I cannot call the whole BF2 as conclusion. Also there is not support outside for it
>So now that I had to make choice between C and E and both had some issues I went ahead with C because C's first part is saying main conclusion which felt more right
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Bboi
Hi everyone below was my thought process can someone help where I might have gone wrong?

>I got confused between C and E, so first i was thinking to go for E but I felt a bit uneasy about only explicit conclusion.

>Because BF2 looked like compound statement carrying a subconclusion("people getting convinced that such messages are overly cautious" -> "governments message being undermined")

>Now because E said "only explicit conclusion" I decided not to go with E because there it felt there was a subconclusion

>But the problem with C was that if BF2 the way I felt is a compound statement then I cannot call the whole BF2 as conclusion. Also there is not support outside for it

>So now that I had to make choice between C and E and both had some issues I went ahead with C because C's first part is saying main conclusion which felt more right
Indicating HOW something is done is very different from providing support for something:

  • "You could lose 10 pounds by going for a brisk walk every morning." The part in bold indicates HOW you might lose 10 pounds, but it isn't evidence that you will or won't actually lose 10 pounds by doing that.
  • "[Increasing the urgency of a public health message] may undermine all government pronouncements on health by convincing people that such messages are overly cautious." The part in bold tells us HOW "increasing the urgency of a public health message" might undermine government pronouncements on health, but it isn't evidence that this will actually happen.

So the 2nd half of the 2nd BF does not qualify as support for the first half. And even if it did, (C) would be inaccurate, as you've described. And since the 2nd BF is not actually a conclusion (since there's no support or evidence for it), (E) works.
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Why is there nothing in the passage that is used to support that opinion? If I break up BF2, it seems to me that "it may undermine all government pronouncements on health" is the opinion used in support of the main conclusion and "by convincing people that such messages are overly cautious" seems to be the support of that opinion?

Also I thought C has a conclusion (though not main, but intermediate as it is an opinion). Am I wrong about this?
GMATNinja

You are right that the second boldfaced portion is the author's opinion. This opinion is used in support of the main conclusion. However, there is nothing in the passage to support that opinion.
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soniasw16
Why is there nothing in the passage that is used to support that opinion? If I break up BF2, it seems to me that "it may undermine all government pronouncements on health" is the opinion used in support of the main conclusion and "by convincing people that such messages are overly cautious" seems to be the support of that opinion?

Also I thought C has a conclusion (though not main, but intermediate as it is an opinion). Am I wrong about this?

It's easy for us to get in our heads when we see this type of question. How do you know the difference between the main conclusion and an intermediate conclusion? Is there a difference between a conclusion and a belief or an opinion?

So instead of posing all those pesky question to ourselves, let's simplify our process. First, just ask yourself: what is the essence of what the author is saying? Put another way, if the author only had time to say one thing to capture the nature of her argument, what would that one thing be?

Here, it's this statement: "Increasing the urgency of a public health message may be counterproductive". This is basically just a neon sign telegraphing a specific belief: it's bad to increase the urgency of public health messages. So that's our main conclusion. (The main conclusion can be a belief or opinion or prediction.)

Now we can ask, what's that second statement doing? It seems to be telling us why increasing the urgency can be counterproductive. Because it'll convince people that this stuff is too cautious.

So that's what we're looking for. Bold 1: Main conclusion. Bold 2: Explaining why we believe this conclusion.

Both (C) and (E) seem to give us some version of these roles. But the problem with (C) is that there's no support for it. No facts. No evidence. Just a possibility: if we go around shouting about crises, we think people will tune out.

For (C) to be right we'd need an example of this phenomenon or some stats. But we don't get either. (And if support had been provided for the second bolded statement, that support wouldn't have come within the statement itself.) So (C) is out.

I hope that clears things up!
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I chose C for this question, isn't "by convincing people that such messages are overly cautious." support for the conclusion " it may undermine all government pronouncements on health "?
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eaat
I chose C for this question, isn't "by convincing people that such messages are overly cautious." support for the conclusion " it may undermine all government pronouncements on health "?

The reason C is wrong is explained in several complete solutions presented across the three pages of discussion, as well as in the following posts specifically.

post 1
post 2
post 3
post 4
post 5
post 6
post 7

Have you had a chance to go through them?
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Boil it down:
Conclusion some activity A maybe counterproductive
Why? 2 reasons
1 more reason

BF1 = MC
BF2 = 1/3 reasons which support MC

The two sections in boldface play which of the following roles in the public health expert's argument?

(A) The first is a conclusion for which support is provided. but is not the argument's main conclusion; the second is an unsupported premise supporting the arguments main conclusion.

(B) The first is a premise supporting the only explicit conclusion; so is the second.

(C) The first is the argument's main conclusion; the second supports that conclusion and is itself a conclusion for which support is provided.

(D) The first is a premise supporting the argument's only conclusion; the second is that conclusion.

(E) The first is the argument‘s only explicit conclusion; the second is a premise supporting that conclusion.
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