Worked examples
Two examples
Example 1
A passage written for this example (its sentences are numbered)
The claim: “The High Line was first built for trains, not for people on foot.”Does sentence 5 support the claim, weaken it, or not bear on it?A. It supports the claim.(1) The High Line is a park built on an old elevated railroad on the West Side of Manhattan. (2) The railroad was built in the 1930s to carry freight trains above the busy streets. (3) The last train ran on it in 1980. (4) The first section of the park opened in 2009. (5) Today the park is about 1.45 miles long.
B. It weakens the claim.
C. It does not bear on the claim.
- Skills Quiz 9: evidence is what a stranger could check that makes a claim more likely or less. It is the claim’s receipt.
- Start with the claim, and say what it is about: what the High Line was first built for.
- Now read sentence 5: the park is about 1.45 miles long today. It is true, and a stranger could check it with a map.
- But ask whether the receipt matches the claim. The length of the park today says nothing about what the structure was first built for. It does not make the claim more likely, and it does not make it less likely.
- So sentence 5 does not bear on the claim. It is a true sentence that does no work here.
- Which sentence does support the claim? Sentence 2: the railroad was built in the 1930s to carry freight trains. That is the receipt.
Answer: C
Example 2
A claim, written for this example
Which evidence would best support this claim?A. A statement by a famous television news anchor that traffic seems lighterA writer claims that fewer cars drove into Manhattan below 60th Street after a new toll began there.
B. A photograph of the new machines that read the toll tags on cars
C. Counts of the cars entering that part of Manhattan each day, for months before and after the toll began
D. Counts of the cars on a highway in New Jersey, for the same months
- Say what the claim is about: the number of cars entering one part of Manhattan, before and after the toll began.
- Now run Skills Quiz 9’s first check on each choice: is there a receipt?
- A is a famous name. A famous person’s statement is not evidence; it is someone else’s claim.
- B is a picture of the machines. It shows that the toll exists, not how many cars came in.
- D is a count, and counts are good evidence, but of the wrong thing: a highway in another state. The receipt does not match the claim.
- C is a count of the right thing, in the right place, before and after. A stranger could check it. That is the receipt that matches.
- Here the right answer is the longest choice. That is not a rule: check each choice against the claim, not its length.
Answer: C
Where this is taught: Skills Quiz 9, Weighing evidence: First, the idea · Skills Quiz 9: the worked example · Skills Diagnostic, Part 9
In your Kaplan book: Unit 3, Chapter 1, Lesson 4: Evaluate Author's Reasoning and Evidence · Map of the Terrain, topic 9: Weighing evidence and reasoning
The drill
Ten questions
How many:
Read what is in the box first. Then tap your answer; a few questions ask you to choose words from a drop-down instead, the way the GED test does. Press Check my answers at the bottom.Read what is in the box first. Circle your answer; where there are brackets, circle the choice that fits. The answer key, with the reasoning, is on the last page.