Critical Reasoning

LalaB wrote: I didnt understand the OA. The options B and E are interesting for me. please explain them

LalaB wrote:Political Science Graduate: Many of the professors I had in college had poor listening skills and seldom made eye contact with their students. For these reasons I always gave them negative evaluations at semester's end.

But Professor Goodell was strikingly different. When she listened to you, you felt heard. And when she looked at you, you felt seen.

The student is implying that-

Choice A wrote:- "strikingly different" refers to physical features, teaching methods, or conversational skills

- This is actually a fairly tempting choice because the student is saying that there is something in this particular professor's manners that makes her different from the other teachers. The other teachers had poor listening skills and make little to no eye contact, so we must take "different" to mean that Prof. Goodell did at least one of these things better (had better listening skills and/or made eye contact). And now HERE is why I don't think this question is written well. I agree that "physical features and teaching methods" might not be what the student meant, but the use of OR means that it could just be "conversational" skills - but I'm guessing that the author of the question takes that only to mean verbal conversational skills (although most of us would agree that being able to listen and actually look at the person with whom you are conversing would be a GOOD conversational skill). So in my book, this answer choice is actually CORRECT.

Choice B wrote:- teachers with good listening skills who make eye contact with students will receive good evaluations

- this one is tricky because of the "will receive good evaluations". The students says the following logic statement:
(IF x THEN y) = "IF they have poor listening/eye contact skills THEN I give poor eval"

Choice (B) is what is known as the negation of this logic statement
(IF NOT x THEN NOT y) = "IF a teacher DOES NOT have poor listening/eye contact skills, THEN she will NOT give poor eval"

**The negation is not guaranteed to be true. (For a simple example - "IF it is sunny, THEN I will play outside." What if it is NOT sunny? We don't know, I didn't tell you anything about that, I might still play outside or I might not - a negation needn't be true). In the question example, a teacher could have great eye contact and listening skills, but our student might still give him/her a poor eval for other reasons!

In order to be guaranteed to be true, we need what is called the "ContraPositive" - negated AND reversed:
"(IF NOT y THEN NOT x) = IF I DON'T give the teacher a poor eval, THEN they CANNOT have poor listening/eye contact skills"

**Go back to the simple example (IF it is sunny, THEN I will play outside.) We are saying that as a guarantee - if it is sunny out, then I'll be out there playing. So, if I'm NOT outside playing, then it CANNOT be sunny outside. Now with the question example - if the student didn't give a prof a poor eval, then the prof MUST have had good listening/eye-contact skills (if they didn't, she would have written a poor eval right!!)

Now, you might argue that the student ends by talking about how wonderfully different Prof Goodall is. But does she ever SAY that she WILL give her a good eval BECAUSE she has those skills?? Nope! She never even says that she will give the Prof a good eval, we just assume it!

Choice C wrote:-effective teachers must have the ability to engage students

- the student never talks about effective teaching, just the criteria by which she will certainly give a bad eval.

Choice D wrote:-those who aspire to be professors should take educational courses in their graduate programs

- there is never discussion about taking additional courses or being more informed/educated.

Choice E wrote:-the better instructors usually listen to their students and make eye contact with them

- I actually think this is an OKAY answer, but I like it less than A to be honest. The student never says these people are BETTER instructors, just that when they do NOT have these skills, she must give them poor evals. The student says that Goodell is better at these skills, but she never comments that she gives this prof a good (or even better) eval. This instructor might have these skills but knows none of the material. I think you need too much back story to make this true (and it escapes the confines of the pure logic that is required of TRUE GMAT "Draw a Conclusion/Inference" problems!

**Again I ask for the source. With so many GREAT GMAT source questions (the new OG 13th ed just came out this week in fact), there is no good reason to practice from materials that aren't as high quality! Just a warning, it is worse to study with poor materials that to study with no materials at all! (bad advice is worse than no advice)!!

I hope this helps!

Whit