Reading Comprehension

OA D

In this question, PART I in no way seems relevant to the ASSERTION as 'I' talks about BODY pf GOVT., BARRED MINISTER, PUBLIC OFFICE. And all of these are related to the STATE.None of them is related to any religious body.Then how does 'I' strengthen the assertion

Experts, please share your opinion

For the same passage

Why isn't E a better option?

My reasoning:

1 C mentions the concrete actions of paragraph 2 as mere attempts.

2 NOthing seems wrong with E.

Optimus Prime (great name by the way! -

For statement number 1, the word "ministers" means the "leader of a particular religious body." The fact that ministers were not allowed to hold public office implies that the separation is there between there government and religion - or as they say "separation of church and state." I can see where you say that religion is not mentioned, but "minister" is meant to be a reference to religion. And since statement 2 is also a sign of support for separation, the correct answer is D.

There is no answer choice with all 3 statements, so that is nice, but we can determine that statement 3 does not show that the Mass. Bay Colony was concerned about "entanglements between church and state" because 3 says that colonists were concerned about "ensuring their own freedom of religion." This could have meant by setting up a religious state.

Hope that helps!

David

There is another doubt right there.I think you probably overlooked

Optimus -

For the second problem that you have listed...

Answer Choice C states, "Social and political problems of an era are presented and then remedies to attempt to solve them are delineated." Perhaps this is not exactly the answer that we were looking for... but it is a possible answer in that the reforms - like the First Amendment and the efforts of the Mass. Bay Colony to have separation of church and state were attempts to deal with the problems of the church and the state being too closely entangled (as was true with the Church of England).

I would have had to use process of elimination here, since choice C is not what I was looking for on this question. Choice A can be eliminated because the passage does not qualify one historical viewpoint with another. Choice B there is no transformation that is criticized. Choice D, the historical period could have served as a catalyst for change but that is not the focus of the passage.

Choice E states, "a perspective is discussed that opened the door for later legislation and reforms." What are the later reforms and legislation? What is the perspective? The reforms seem to have come then - first amendment, etc. The current situation is one of debate rather than reforms.

This is honestly not my favorite question. But not every question on test day will be!! It seems that C is just a little bit better than E for the details I mentioned above.

David@VeritasPrep wrote:
For statement number 1, the word "ministers" means the "leader of a particular religious body."

Dear David, I didn't know that minister meant 'leader of a particular religious body'. The passage also doesn't seem to suggest so, as per my understanding. How do we make this assumption?

"Minister" is a fairly common American English word, so I would not call this an assumption. Of course if you do not know the word it could be very frustrating. I am not sure if, on the test day, the GMAT would provide you with a definition in context or if you would be expected to know this word, it is a close call. This word is in a question rather than in the passage so that makes it tougher for you to gain a definition from the context.

David@VeritasPrep wrote:"Minister" is a fairly common American English word, so I would not call this an assumption. Of course if you do not know the word it could be very frustrating. I am not sure if, on the test day, the GMAT would provide you with a definition in context or if you would be expected to know this word, it is a close call. This word is in a question rather than in the passage so that makes it tougher for you to gain a definition from the context.

There has been great debate either gmat discriminate against non natives or not...
i think even in this case asking a test taker to learn jargon is "asking for too much"

I dont think dictionary says "ministers" means "leader of a particular religious body."

It may have been acceptable if ministers would have meant "member of cabinet of any country".Personally i dont think asking test taker to know each jargon is ideal...
for eg i know programming,any programmer would understand when i say mvc,view...controller....now i should not say that controller acts as bootstrap in any programming...and you should know that...

any way just personal thoughts
creative feedbacks only....
no offence
thank you

Frank1 -

No offense is taken. Do you know that in the U.S. we do not refer to any member of the government as a minister? I had sort of forgotten that this is the usage in most countries around the world.

So the question is assuming one usage of minister that would be common here in the U.S., and everyone from other countries is thinking of a "minister" as being a member government already and is wondering why a minister of government can't serve in government. To me this is humorous only because it is not on the actual GMAT.

By the way, I would still not say this is "jargon." More like multicultural misunderstanding!

Thanks to both of you and apologies to "paddlesweep" for not fully understanding your earlier point.