Lesson
Two: Arguments Strategies
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Introduction
An argument, as used on
the GMAT, is a presentation of facts and opinions in order to support a
position. Many arguments will be fallacious. And many correct answers will be
false! This often causes students much consternation; they feel that the
correct answer should be true. But the arguments are intended to test your
ability to think logically. Now logic is the study of the relationships
between statements, not of the truth of those statements. Being overly
concerned with finding the truth can be ruinous to your GMAT argument score.
"2 OUT OF
5" RULE
Creating a good but
incorrect answer-choice is much harder than developing the correct answer. For
this reason, usually only one attractive wrong answer-choice is presented.
This is called the "2 out of 5" rule. That is, only two of
the five answer-choices will have any real merit. Hence, even if you don't
fully understand an argument, you probably can still eliminate the three fluff
choices, thereby greatly increasing your odds of answering the question
correctly.
