Inferences | Worked example

- [Instructor] So we've got a short passage here with a single question about it. Many students find it helpful in these circumstances to read the question or the stem first. Sometimes it helps you focus your reading of the passage if you know in advanced what's being asked. However, if there's more than one question, my recommendation here changes a bit. We don't recommend that you try to keep more than one question in you head while reading a passage. It's more effective to read the passage first actively and thoroughly and then head to the question afterwards. Since we only have one question here, I'm gonna read that first and then go through the passage. Let's start down here with the stem. The author suggests which of the following about the fact that scientists have not yet succeeded in detecting dark matter? Cool. Alright, so based on the word suggests, I'm going to infer that this is an inference question. So what we're going to have to do in this question is find some evidence that is heavily implied in this passage and then find the answer that best matches it. And these questions do not require you to pull the full Shirlock Holmes, right? Like we're not trying to figure out the tumble of a domino 80 pieces from now. The answer that we are looking for will be a clear implication from the passage. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna read this passage, and then we're gonna try and condense it and figure out what the main point of the passage is and then test that. In our own words, test that against the answer choices. So, the passage. We know quite a lot about the universe, but there is much more that we still do not know. About 80% of it, for instance, does not exist as visible matter, but as something invisible and mysterious. So-called dark matter. Scientists have not yet succeeded, which a direct line that is echoed in the question stem. Scientists have not yet succeeded in detecting the subatomic particles thought to comprise this dark matter. Suppose they never succeed? That will mean that a substantial amount of the universe will continue to consist of material that we cannot perceive, even with our most advanced tools. So what this passage is saying is that we know a lot, but there's so much we don't know, that 80% of the universe is invisible and unknowable to us at the present moment, and that it may never be knowable. I'm going to say, I'm going to condense this entire paragraph down into a single sentence which is we may never know the full extent of the universe. Heavy, but kinda cool at the same time. So let's take this, you know, we may never know the full extent of the universe. As we go through these answer choices, there are a couple of ways we can knock out wrong answers right away, incorrect choices. We're looking for things that either fall outside the scope of the passage. Stuff that kinda seems to come out of left field. So we're looking for out of scope. And we're looking for things that are too extreme. Something that goes further than the evidence could suggest, than the evidence could support. So lets take a look at these answer choices. Choice A. It has generated widespread criticism of the scientific establishment. I don't buy this one because there's no mention of criticism in the passage. In fact the idea that the scientific establishment such as this could never succeed is more of a hypothetical from the writer. It's not a critique of the existing scientists that are working on dark matter. So I'm gonna say no thank you. B, it has stimulated the public's interest in the search for dark matter. This is out of scope. There's no mention of the public or its interests or the impact of the failure to find dark matter upon the public. So we just, we can't support the inference. So I'm gonna take that one out as well. C, it is testimony to how much we still have to learn about the structure of the universe. Well that kinda sounds like my summary, we may never know the full extent of the universe. So let's star this and come back to it and see if there's a more strongly supported inference that can be drawn. But this is neat because this is basically, this is a restatement of the first sentence of the passage, and it's very similar to what we wrote. Option D. It only recently became a matter of concern for a select group of scientists. And look, this may be true, but this it out of scope. We have no way to confirm that from the passage. All the information that we need to answer the question should be contained within this passage. So I'm going to cross this off, 'cause we just don't know. We don't know when, and we don't know who. We don't have any evidence as to when dark matter began to be a matter of concern, or who studied it. So D is not our answer. Finally E, it has stimulated the development of new tools for searching for dark matter. Now this is tempting because this option mentions new tools and the passage mentions advanced tools. But even though we are looking to draw an inference, to make a guess, we cannot explicitly connect the failure to detect dark matter to the development of new tools. That may be true, but again there's not enough information in the passage to draw that conclusion. We're really looking for the most supportable. It's not that this is impossible. It's not that this is unlikely to be true. Right, and the word suggest here is very important, because we're not, we really are looking for just an argument that is present in the passage. And so to me, that means C is our answer. It is testimony to how much we still have to learn about the structure of the universe. Because that is very similar to the language that the author uses in the passage themselves. So make sure to look for assertions that can be supported by the text. And once you eliminated those options that seemed out of scope, or to extreme, you'll have a much easier time finding the answer.