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Why I am doing this: Since many students have difficulties in approaching boldface (BF) problems, I’ve decided to write a series of posts on how to crack them.
Before we start, let us think about several questions:
- why people think BF problems difficult?
- are they really hard to tackle?
- how to tackle them?
- is there an universal approach that can be used to crack all of them? If yes, then what is it?
Here are my own points of view on these questions:
- Because BF problems appear different, they seems peculiar, if you will. Often times we see critical reasoning (CR) problems are in forms of “weaken/support/strengthen the argument”, “basis of the assumption”, “complete the argument”, etc. As you are going through these typical CR questions, you feel so comfortable dealing with them that once a weird looking BF problem jumps out right in front of you, you are scared, stunned, and thus lost, do not know where to go. Then you say, what a heck this BF talking about, I don’t have a clue on this tough question. Why you think it is tough? Because you are not familiar with it.
- are they really hard? No, not at all. Your unfamiliarity does not mean its toughness.
- How to tackle them? First what I want you to do is to familiarize yourself with it, acquaint yourself with it and finally make friends with it, once you get thereyou will like it. How to do so? You need to “talk” to its creator (ETS), since the BF problem itself is unable to “talk”, you need to talk to those who created it.
- Yes, there is one. This is all this post about.
Fortunately and unfortunately, I’ve only found one BF problem with ETS comments, which is OG Verbal Review (purple book cover) problem #82 also available in OG 205.
Consumer advocate: it is generally true, at least in this state, that lawyers who advertise a specific service charge less for that service than lawyers who do not advertise. It is also true that each time restrictions on the advertising of legal services have been eliminated, the number of lawyers advertising their services has increased and legal costs to consumers have declined in consequence. However, eliminating the state requirement that legal advertisements must specify fees for specific services would almost certainly increase rather than further reduce consumer’s legal costs. Lawyers would no longer have an incentive to lower their fees when they begin advertising and if no longer required to specify fee arrangements, many lawyers who now advertise would increase their fees.
A) the first is a generalization that the consumer advocate accepts as true; the second is presented as a consequence that follows the truth of that generalization
B) the first is a pattern of cause and effect that the consumer advocate argues will be repeated in the case at issue; the second cknowledges a circumstance in which that pattern would not hold
C) the first is a pattern of cause and effect that the consumer advocate predicts will not hold in the case at issue; the second offers a consideration in support of that prediction
D) the first is evidence that the consumer advocate offers in support of a certain prediction; the second is that prediction
E) the first acknowledge a consideration that weighs against the main position that the consumer advocate
defends; the second is that position
Before we really get into this question,first we need to explore the intention of the problem creator, namely ETS. In analysis this problem, the ETS says, “This question asks the reader to look carefully at how the argument is constructed and in particular at how the two sentences in boldface are related”. This is exactly what ETS wants to test us!
- structure of the argument.
- relationship between the two sentences
Therefore, we need to be on the look out at the above two points once we see a BF. Pay extreme attention at these two points!! Ask yourself clearly on these two questions when you see a BF.
中文写吧，快一些。
- 一定要看清楚作者是谁。本例是consumer advocate，整个段落都是他的话或者观点。这点要明确。
- 一定要看清作者的结论。很简单。往往很多题目很快到此解决。如果不能解决，看下面。
- 我们来看看第一点，这段话的结构如何，也就是说逻辑是如何建立的。我们在谈逻辑的时候一定要注意关键词，关键的小词，关键的小词包括：therefore, thus, consequently, on the contrary, etc. 事实上BF题干中一定（简单的题目除外）会有一些这样的小词，不然的话，整个段落的结构和意思会很简单，就不存在画出两个句子考察关系这种情况了。还有一个规律是，BF题目一定会在这些小词的前后各划一个句子（想想为什么）。下面我们会看到。
这个题目的逻辑图是：律师做广告收费低廉百姓受益——》取消限制更多律师做广告更多百姓受益——》但是（注意！），明确费用的限制取消后律师收费增加百姓吃亏——》因为，取消明确费用后律师没有动力降低费用了。 - 看看，两句话能不能各自形成结构，先不考虑二者关系。显然第一句是个因果结构。
- 两者如何联系？先看看两者各自所占的地位，比如例子，论证，结论，反驳等。因为第一和第二句话在however转折之前，两者一定靠一个桥梁越过however建立联系，这就是说，第一句话是作者要加以改变的观点，（predicts will not hold）, 我们称之为逆转观点。然后第二句话支持论证这个逆反观点。
- 最后一点重要的是正确理解一些常用词汇。
Consideration: a matter weighted or taken into account when formulating a plan or opinion
理由，因素 Circumstance: 情况 (本例用的是这个意思)
事实（=fact，会用到）
Assumption: sth taken for granted or considered as truth without proof
区别于 facts
有待补充词汇。 | 
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发表于 2008-1-21 08:51:00
