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Confused between Must be true and strengthen question

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Confused between Must be true and strengthen question

by RadiumBall » Sat Jan 15, 2011 9:24 am
Hello All,
As I understand must be true answer should be something that is 100% true about the argument (premise) and such answer will be in the current scope while strengthen answer can be 99.999% true but need not be 100% true and such answers could be outside the current scope. I hope I am correct till here.

My real problem though is with the question stem,
would the following come under stengthen or must be true?
"which of the folllowing, if true, most strongly supports the argument" or
"which of the following most supports the argument"

I some how had an impression that if you find the keyword "if ture" in the question then it is a "must be true" type but I am confused...

Thanks
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by arora007 » Sat Jan 15, 2011 11:14 am
I guess you have seen the Thursdays with Ron Aug and Sept, rite? thats where you get the 100% and 99.999% :-)

well according to me both the answers come under the strengthen answers, the keyword being "supports the argument"
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by VivianKerr » Sat Jan 15, 2011 4:21 pm
I agree. The keyword "supports" implies information that would strengthen the argument. Questions that ask about what "must be true" will have the phrase "must be true" in them.
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by prachich1987 » Sat Jan 15, 2011 7:08 pm
RadiumBall wrote:Hello All,
As I understand must be true answer should be something that is 100% true about the argument (premise) and such answer will be in the current scope while strengthen answer can be 99.999% true but need not be 100% true and such answers could be outside the current scope. I hope I am correct till here.

My real problem though is with the question stem,
would the following come under stengthen or must be true?
"which of the folllowing, if true, most strongly supports the argument" or
"which of the following most supports the argument"

I some how had an impression that if you find the keyword "if ture" in the question then it is a "must be true" type but I am confused...

Thanks
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by RadiumBall » Sat Jan 15, 2011 7:51 pm
Actually I got confused after reading CR bible... :(
Perfect guess arora007... :mrgreen:
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by mundasingh123 » Sun Jan 16, 2011 2:31 am
RadiumBall wrote:Actually I got confused after reading CR bible... :(
Perfect guess arora007... :mrgreen:
Which of the following does the passage above give the maximum support for ?=Must Be true Question
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by David@VeritasPrep » Wed Jan 19, 2011 7:55 pm
Locating the conclusion is one of the best ways to use the question stem to identify a "must be true." Must be true is known as an inference / conclusion question.

You may have noticed, but the names of the question types correlates to what the answer choices actually do (at least this is true of the categories we use at Veritas).

We have the SWIMMER categorization. Strengthen, Weaken, Inference/ Conclusion, Method, Mimic, Explain/ Resolve the Paradox, and Roles in Bold-Face.

So you see that this describes what the answer choices do: The answer strengthens or it weakens, or the answer is a conclusion, or it resolves the paradox, or describes the roles in bold-face.

The reason that I discuss this is so that you can see that the key to identifying the inference/ conclusion (or must be true) question is by identifying the location of the conclusion. If the conclusion is in the answer choices then you have an inference question. If the conclusion is in the stimulus you have a strengthen question (or weaken, etc.)

Luckily, the GMAT often makes it easy to locate the conclusion. Many, many official inference questions say "which of the following conclusions." How is that for locating the conclusion? The come out and tell you where it is.

Even if they don't say "which of the following conclusions" you can still locate the conclusion. For example, "which of the following is most supported by the statements above?" Remember that conclusions are supported and premises do the supporting. So in the question stem above, you can see that the following (in other words the answer choices) are supported. This means you have an inference question.

Oh and by the way, I skip over the words "if true" which by the way are set off by commas. The above is much more reliable. What does the answer choice do?

Hope that helps!
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by suramya26 » Sun Dec 04, 2016 9:49 am
Which of the following,if true most supports the argument?

This is the common question stem which we encounter for both the strengthen and Must be true questions

How will we get to know that whether we can Strengthen the question by using outside information
OR
we have to to select that option which can be best paraphrased from the answer choices??
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by GMATGuruNY » Sun Dec 04, 2016 10:50 am
suramya26 wrote:Which of the following,if true most supports the argument?

This is the common question stem which we encounter for both the strengthen and Must be true questions

How will we get to know that whether we can Strengthen the question by using outside information
OR
we have to to select that option which can be best paraphrased from the answer choices??
If the correct answer choice must support the passage, the result is a STRENGTHEN CR.
If the passage must support the correct answer choice, the result is an INFERENCE CR.

Which of the following most supports the argument above?
Here, the correct answer choice must support the passage.
The result is a STRENGTHEN CR.
The correct answer choice must offer new information that strengthens the conclusion the argument.

The statements above most support which of the following?
Here, the passage must support the correct answer choice.
The result is an INFERENCE CR.
The correct answer choice is a statement that must be true, given the information in the passage.
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