In the passage below, I chose C as the answer for question 18 since I couldn’t really find the evidence for anything else. When I went through the solutions for the big book, “The interstellar material, rather…comes in all shapes and sizes” was used as the evidence to justify E. I found myself disagreeing because to me density =/= shape or size hence going past my “must be true” filter. On that note, how to prevent myself from eliminating an answer choice that has been so sneakily rephrased given the time constraints?
For Q19, I wasn’t able to figure out why A is the wrong answer and had a 50/50 in between A and C but picked the wrong answer. Can anyone help me in understanding how A is wrong? I am having a really hard time with inference questions and would appreciate any help. Thanks!
I think for #18 the “all shapes and sizes” is not what we should be looking at for choice E, since we can’t infer anything about density from that. I would get it from the next sentence - if we’re talking about “average density”, it must be true that the density isn’t homogenous.
I think for 19 we can’t really point to anything for choice A that makes it necessarily true. Who said anything about anything “seeming substantial”? If we look at the 2nd to last sentence, we can see that what the passage does say about the vast distances is that the little dust we do have has an outsized impact.
Notice for both of these I’m using the skill I call, “location, location, location” i.e. I’m finding the right sentence in the text to judge a choice based on the keyword(s) in that choice. I will be teaching an inference class this week in which I discuss this further - should be posted tomorrow.
Very astute catch on question 18 Vince. Thanks for that. For 19, you’re absolutely right there’s nothing in the text about “seems substantial”. Now that I look at the text, the second to the last sentence that you’re referring to, seems like an assertion; has an almost factual tone. Would you say that’s why “seeming” is not a good fit here?
I don’t like “little of it seems substantial”. Absolutely nothing to support that, and, in fact, a nearly opposite point is being made: that it has an outsized effect because of the distances involved.
