ARGUMENTS 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 co

rrect answers will be false！ This often causes students much consternation；

they feel that the correct answer should be true. But the arguments are inte

nded to test your ability to think logically. Now logic is the study of the

relationships between statements， not of the truth of those statements. Bein

g overly concerned with finding the truth can be ruinous to your GMAT argume

nt score.

“2 OUT OF 5” RULE

Creating a good but incorrect answer-choice is much harder than developing t

he 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 tw

o of the five answer-choices will have any real merit. Hence， even if you do

n't fully understand an argument， you probably can still eliminate the three

fluff choices， thereby greatly increasing your odds of answering the questi

on correctly.

LOGIC I

Although in theory the argument questions are designed to be answered withou

t any reference to formal logic， the section is essentially a logic test. So

me knowledge of the fundamentals of logic， therefore， will give you a defini

te advantage. Armed with this knowledge， you should quickly notice that the

arguments are fundamentally easy and that most of them fallsintosa few basic

categories. In this section， we will study the logical structure of argumen

ts. In Logic II， we will symbolize and diagram arguments in much the same wa

y as we did with games

Conclusions

Most argument questions hinge， either directly or indirectly， on determining

the conclusion of the argument. The conclusion is the main idea of the argu

ment. It is what the writer tries to persuade the reader to believe. Most of

ten the conclusion comes at the end of the argument. The writer organizes th

e facts and his opinions so that they build up to the conclusion. Sometimes，

however， the conclusion will come at the beginning of an argument， rarely d

oes it come in the middle， and occasionally， for rhetorical effect， the conc

lusion is not even stated.

Example：

The police are the armed guardians of the social order. The blacks are the c

hief domestic victims of the American social order. A conflict of interest e

xists， therefore， between the blacks and the police.——Eldridge Cleaver， Soul

on Ice

Here the first two sentences anticipate or set up the conclusion. By changin

g the grammar slightly， the conclusion can be placed at the beginning of the

argument and still sound natural：

A conflict of interest exists between the blacks and the police because the

police are the armed guardians of the socialsgroupsand the blacks are the ch

ief domestic victims of the American social order.

The conclusion can also be forcedsintosthe middle：

The police are the armed guardians of the social order. So a conflict of int

erest exists between the blacks and the police because the blacks are the ch

ief domestic victims of the American social order.

It is generally awkward， as in the previous paragraph， to place the conclusi

on in the middle of the argument because then it cannot be fully anticipated

by what comes before nor fully explained by what comes after. On the rare o

ccasion when a conclusion comes in the middle of an argument， most often eit

her the material that comes after it or the material that comes before it is

not essential