RC Question 20 Explanation
DISCUSSION: There’s no way to prephrase this, so you should look for the most likely answers and then test those.
Note: This question asks for an inference. So, it won’t be something in the passage. Instead, statements in the passage will support the answer. This is like a most strongly supported question from LR.
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- This isn’t supported. Paragraph 4 said that the study looked at narrow, tiled fracture zones. But, it didn’t say whether such zones are more likely to be in arid regions, and there was no comparison between regions in any respect.
- This doesn’t follow. Paragraph 4 only told us about one study. And paragraphs 2 and 3 say that studies generally don’t indicate dowsing success. But….it’s very possible there is at least one reliable study that showed dowsers finding some other resource. E.g. you could have: the study in paragraph 4, another reliable study showing dowsers finding oil, and then 1000 studies showing dowsers finding nothing. That would generally show dowsing to be ineffective, and yet there would be more than one reliable study showing dowsers finding resources, and in one study the resource wasn’t water.
“Generally” doesn’t mean “none of the time”. - We don’t know. Dowsing tools are only mentioned at the start of paragraph 1, and the passage never mentions if certain tools are used in certain situations.
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This doesn’t follow. True, lines 58-59 do say that dowsers located a dry fracture zone upon request, and this is in the lines where the author is saying dowsers were more successful than geologists and hydrologists. But….we don’t know if a request was made of the geologists! It’s possible that the following happened:
- Stats showed the dowsers were more successful.
- The study was over, and the researchers were impressed. They decided to ask the dowsers “say, could you locate a dry fracture zone?”
This might be something the geologists could have done, but they weren’t asked. In fact, it’s possible that geologists typically are able to locate such zones as well (in which case there would be no need to ask).
- CORRECT. This is supported by paragraphs 3 and 4. In paragraph 3 (lines 34-39), dowsing proponents say that the typical dowsing study doesn’t select dowsers well and successful dowsers are not well represented. Whereas the study in paragraph 4 picked the most successful dowsers. So, the study was not typical in this respect.
“Proponents” does not mean the author so how can you justify that the author would agree with this? That’s a leap to say that the passage supports E because OTHER people support E…. and I have a feeling that a wrong answer in another exam will be wrong because of the reasoning I just mentioned.
the question is not asking anything about the author agreeing with the proponents and the explanation here is not about that either. The question is about a MBT in the passage, even tho it’s an ” inference”. Indeed the word ” typical” is in the passage in the paragraph of the ” proponents”.. It describes a “typical “dowsing. It is not an author’s opinion and it is not a proponent’s opinion. It’s a fact, a premise, a MBT about typical drowsing and the answer E is the most boring, safe and clearly written in the PASSAGE. I missed it bc it was really a boring answer and almost invisible word ” typical” but this is what I learned about these ” inference” questions. They are all MBT especially when the stem states ” in the passage”. Then you know that they want a MBT that is in the Passage and they are messing with you by asking for an ” inference”.
:)