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605-655 Level|   Assumption|      
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Bunuel
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The United Nations General Assembly term runs from September to 06 Mar 2025, 01:30
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Difficulty:

45% (medium)

Question Stats:

70% (01:54) correct 30% (02:08) wrong based on 346 sessions

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The United Nations General Assembly term runs from September to January. The greatest part of this time is taken up with useless chatter. Delegates debate endlessly, never arriving at decisions. The delegate from each and every 300-square-mile archipelago in the South Pacific must make a lengthy presentation on every topic that reaches the floor, yet almost no attention is paid to solving practical problems that are actually capable of being solved.

The author's argument is based on which one of the following assumptions?

A. The purpose of the General Assembly is to deal with specific practical problems.
B. Too many small states with insignificant problems are members of the General Assembly.
C. If the General Assembly spent less time debating, it would devote most of its attention to providing relief for famine areas.
D. The term of the General Assembly is too short for any important work to be accomplished.
E. Members of the General Assembly who are from large countries tend to concentrate more on global issues, rather than on minor topics.


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A
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Sartack2001
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The United Nations General Assembly term runs from September to 06 Mar 2025, 01:55
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Hi Bunuel,

Could you please provide the correct answer to this question? I have selected A
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The United Nations General Assembly term runs from September to 06 Mar 2025, 01:59
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Hi Bunuel,

Could you please provide the correct answer to this question? I have selected A
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The OA will be automatically revealed on Friday 7th of March 2025 12:30:21 AM Pacific Time Zone.

Meanwhile, you are welcome to post your reasoning for your answer.
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The United Nations General Assembly term runs from September to 06 Mar 2025, 04:49
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the author concludes that UN General Assembly is paying almost no attention to practical problems that can be solved, so to come to this conclusion, author must have assumed that the job of UN(General Assembly) is to pay attention to these practical problems. and Option A does the job i believe.
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The United Nations General Assembly term runs from September to 06 Mar 2025, 06:42
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Even though each and every delegate is made to present a problem affecting their region . yet almost no attention is paid to solving practical problems that are actually capable of being solved.

Yet almost no attention and actually capable of are key words to arrive at the solution.

The author assumes the UN general assembly is actually capable of providing practical solutions to problems. option A
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The United Nations General Assembly term runs from September to 05 Apr 2025, 02:00
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Bunuel
The United Nations General Assembly term runs from September to January. The greatest part of this time is taken up with useless chatter. Delegates debate endlessly, never arriving at decisions. The delegate from each and every 300-square-mile archipelago in the South Pacific must make a lengthy presentation on every topic that reaches the floor, yet almost no attention is paid to solving practical problems that are actually capable of being solved.

The author's argument is based on which one of the following assumptions?

A. The purpose of the General Assembly is to deal with specific practical problems.
B. Too many small states with insignificant problems are members of the General Assembly.
C. If the General Assembly spent less time debating, it would devote most of its attention to providing relief for famine areas.
D. The term of the General Assembly is too short for any important work to be accomplished.
E. Members of the General Assembly who are from large countries tend to concentrate more on global issues, rather than on minor topics.­
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Kaplan Official Explanation:



Step 1: Identify the Question Type

This is an Assumption question. The correct choice will be something the author left out, but must believe to be true for the conclusion to follow from the evidence.

Step 2: Untangle the Stimulus

The author's bottom line, paraphrased, is that the UN General Assembly is wasting its time. Most of the time it meets is spent in “useless” talking, debating, and making presentations, but not in solving practical problems.

Step 3: Predict the Answer

The time spent by the General Assembly in talking, debating, making presentations, and general “chatter” is only “useless” if the G.A.'s purpose is to actually solve problems. The author must believe this to be the case, or else he would have no reason to complain.

Step 4: Evaluate the Choices

(A) matches the prediction and is therefore the correct answer.

(B) is not assumed by the author, even though he mentions how the “delegate from each and every 300-square-mile archipelago in the South Pacific” has to make a presentation. The author might be fine with the current membership - he just wishes they would stop talking and start solving problems.

(C) is something the author may or may not believe, but he isn‘t assuming this in his argument. The specific problems that the G.A. would work on simply do not come into play in the author’s reasoning.

As for (D), the author doesn't complain about the length of the G.A.’s term, so he is not assuming a longer term would allow work to be accomplished. The author's problem is with what the delegates do with the time they do have - “useless chatter.”

(E) is incorrect because the author makes a general claim about all G.A. members. His reasoning is not based on any belief about the focus of large countries.

TAKEAWAY: Be very clear on the evidence and conclusion of the argument, and stick to the connection between them. Irrelevant choices are quite common, and can be easily spotted by having a good paraphrase of the argument.
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