Week 6, Day 1: Chapter 7 - Critical Reasoning

 Chapter 7, Critical Reasoning

Special variety of reading comprehension questions!

·       Focus on the author’s argument

·       2 to 4 questions per verbal section

·       Structure = Argument

o   An argument is a series of statements offered as proof (premises, reasons why) for some proposition (conclusion, claim, assertion).

o   Example:

§  Premise: All mammals have fur.

§  Premise: All cats are mammals.

§  Conclusion: Therefore all cats have fur.

o   Not an argument:

§  I like cake.

§  Cake is good.

§  Give me some cake.

o   Complete the inference:

§  Premise: All humans are mortal.

§  Premise: Socrates is human.

§  Conclusion:

o   Note: A moral argument requires moral evidence.

o   Premise(s)

§  Reasons why, support, proof, evidence for some claim

§  Often more than one, supporting points or evidence for the conclusion, the reasons for believing the author’s opinion or main point

§  May be factual, historical, scientific, statistic, etc.

§  Premise identification words: because, since, due to, based on, for, inasmuch as, as shown by, for the reason that, as indicated by, in that, may be inferred from, as, given that, seeing that, owing to

§  Note: a single indicator word may indicate more than one premise, and premises may have no indicators at all

o   Conclusion

§  Not the end of the paragraph or essay; in logic, a conclusion is the most important part of an argument, the claim or assertion made by the author, the proposition the author wants to convince you is true

§  Usually a statement of belief or opinion, can be a prediction of results or effects

§  Conclusion identification words: therefore, thus, so, hence, consequently, in conclusion, accordingly, as a result, wherefore, we may infer, we may conclude, it must be that, for this reason, entails that, it follows that, implies that

§  Opinion identification words: suggest, believe, hope, indicate, argue, follow

§  Belief identification words: should, would, must, will, ought

§  Note that conclusions may precede or follow the premises in order of presentation

§  Note also that indicator words can be used in error by bad writers

o   Assumptions

§  Assumptions are things that are not SAID in the argument, but are REQUIRED if the argument is to make any sense. Some assumptions seem so obvious that it would be silly to even say them out loud. There are no assumption identification words because assumptions are not explicitly stated, they are only implied.

o   Some statements in the passage may be neither premises nor conclusions