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Doubt in Veritas Strategy - Experts please help

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imhimanshu Rising GMAT Star Default Avatar
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Doubt in Veritas Strategy - Experts please help Post Mon Apr 30, 2012 6:19 am
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  • Lap #[LAPCOUNT] ([LAPTIME])
    HI Experts,
    Request you to provide your inputs on the below doubt.
    I was going thro' the explanation provided in the book on Strengthen strategy. It says that:
    Solving tips: Select an answer choice that supplies new information relevant to the conclusion. Find the answer that supplies the missing premise( a key assumption). Remember you don't need to prove the authors conclusion, just strengthen it.

    Couple of doubts-

    1- Does the answer choice need to satisfy all the above techniques.
    2- Isn't finding the key assumption is different than finding the new information. If yes, then does this mean that the answer choice can follow one of the characteristic- i.e. either an assumption or a new information. Please explain.

    Thanks

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    Bill@VeritasPrep GMAT Instructor
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    Post Mon Apr 30, 2012 7:45 am
    An assumption is still considered "new" information. It's something the author has implicitly used to draw the conclusion, but since it's not an explicit part of the argument, it can still be considered "new".

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    David@VeritasPrep GMAT Instructor
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    Post Wed May 02, 2012 11:53 am
    imhimanshu -

    Let me echo what Bill has said and elaborate a little...In order to "strengthen" or "support" a conclusion you must provide new information. You cannot strengthen something by stating what has already been said. For example, if I had just pasted your post from above and said nothing else I could not strengthen this discussion because I would not have added something new.

    Bottom line: In order to strengthen or weaken a conclusion you must provide "new" information.

    Now what form does this take? The new information does not have to be - and in fact should not be - unexpected completely surprising information. Instead it should work with the parts of the argument that are already in the stimulus. You see what you are really doing when you strengthen an argument is by making the evidence better linked to the conclusion.

    One way to anticipate the correct answer is to look for the "step" that the argument has skipped over. This can be referred to as an assumption. For example if I say that "All humans are warm-blooded. Therefore, John is warm-blooded." You can see my assumption quite clearly, I assume that "John is human." If that were stated in an answer choice it would be the correct answer. If we do not know that then for all we know John is a robot, and then the evidence does not lead to the the conclusion.

    Here is an article that I wrote last year that can help you understand what we mean at Veritas when we talk about strengthening! http://www.beatthegmat.com/mba/2011/02/07/mip-critical-reasoning-the-tim-duncan-way

    Good luck!

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