如何找出这个argument的assumption?

cathycathyhan

Argument:
Public health will improve more quickly in the wake of new medical discoveries if medical researchers abandon their practice of waiting until their findings are published in peer-reviewed journals before informing the press of important research results. That is because the public release of new medical information allows people to use that information in order to improve their health, but the peer-review process is unavoidably very slow.
我按照Bible里的10中题型，这题问你它的assumption是什么？我分析：
issue: new medicine could speed up public health or not
point: cannot
reasoning: new medicine has to be through slow peer-review process
我的问题是，我的理解是不是正确，你们如何找出这个argument的assumption? 求解答！

ivy3997

把选项给出了比较好

cathycathyhan

Ivy,请问你做题的步骤是读好题目后，自己根据问题想答案，还是看答案，然后再一个一个比较呢？我看Bible里讲的十种类型，里面都有，stop, think的过程，我是完全按照这个过程做题目的。

ivy3997

我现在做这种题也会错，但一般一部分最多错1个了吧。

assumption其实就是argument中间的gap，一般argument都有很多gap，有些可以一眼看出，有些不一定，所以有时候一些选项有提示作用。

zhShirley

首先argument是premise》》conclusion根据assumpiton在推理中的位置不同可以把它分两种，
一种是premise的premise，也就是前提的前提。这种assumption和principle差不多了

另外还有一种就是fill the logic gap，通常题干是a>B,C>D,所以a》D，那么gap assumpiton就是b>c


这个题干，我觉得可以有一个assumpiton就是，some medical findings that might be wrong and thus harmful to the public if not get processed by journals,
will not outweigh the benefit brought up by beneficiary discoveries.
以上我的小小看法

cathycathyhan

谢谢大家的答案，我没有给出选项主要是训练自己的一个思维方式，看到bible和另外一本书都提倡先看问题，然后看题目，读好题目后想清楚，最后看选项，意思是你选的答案和你想的应该是差不多的。这倒题目的答案是：people would use new medical information even if it were not first published in peer-reviewed journels.
这个答案是对于原文的改写，我发现很多答案就是对于原文的改写。这两天我一直看bible，感觉挺有帮助的。
premise 1: if medical researchers abandon their practice of waiting until their findings are published in peer-reviewed journals before informing the press of important research results.
premise 2: That is because the public release of new medical information allows people to use that information in order to improve their health,
premise 3:  but the peer-review process is unavoidably very slow.
conclusion: Public health will NOT improve more quickly in the wake of new medical discoveries
我把conclusion加了个not,因为全文本身是一个假设，最后发现假设不成立，因为peer-review process is unavoidably very slow.这里用了个unavoidably，还有前面的一个but,这些都是提示premise 3就是出题人的考点。所以assumption自己的结论是： public health will not improve more quickly in the wake of new medical because new medical in the peer-review process is unavoidably very slow.再回头看看答案，就是对于这个的改写。
有人说assumption一是找gap,还有就是排除他因，可是有时候我看选项，也觉得很迷茫，往往在2个选项中纠结。最近看bible，从出题人的角度，才发现人家和我们想的还是有点出入的。人家看到一个argument，首先就会关注题本身，比如
The importance of the ozone layer to terrestrial
animals is that it （entirely） filters out （some）
wavelengths of light （but） lets others through. Holes in
the ozone layer and the dangers associated with these
holes are well documented. However, one danger that
has （not） been given sufficient attention is that these
holes （could） lead to severe eye damage for animals of
（many） species.
我打括号的是人家读题是特别注意的，我感觉很受启发。如果我读题，我肯定不会注意到entirely这个词汇，我觉得lsat难也是难在这里，它提出的critical reading往往从这些细小的词来体现。

cathycathyhan

呵呵，对于这道题，我这几天看Bible中的assumption系列，我看了好多次里面的做法。这是我的一些个人体会。
1.assumption分supporter和defender两种，两种做法是不一样的，前面supporter就是找gap,后面defender就是把选项取反，然后可以weaken文章中结论的就是正确答案。但是实际例子中，你能不能确定哪个是supporter题型，哪个是defender题型，还是有一定困难的。
比如这道题目，它藏的信息很隐蔽。
The two newest employees at this company have salaries that are too high for the simple tasks normally assigned to new employees and duties that are too complex for inexperienced workers. Hence, the salaries and the complexity of the duties of these two newest employees should be reduced.
Which one of the following is an assumption on
which Barnes’s argument depends?
(A) The duties of the two newest employees are not less complex than any others in the company.
(B) It is because of the complex duties assigned that the two newest employees are being paid more than is usually paid to newly hired employees.
(C) The two newest employees are not experienced at their occupations.
(D) Barnes was not hired at a higher-than-average starting salary.
(E) The salaries of the two newest employees are no higher than the salaries that other companies pay for workers with a similar level of experience.
我总结的一个方法，个人觉得supporter和defender都可以适用，就是读这类题目，重点找到conclusion和里面讲的原因，然后再根据conclusion里包含的一些关系词来找答案，虽然有时候不太明白答案的内容，但是正确率可以提高不少。回头再看我自己的原帖子。
Public health will improve more quickly in the wake of new medical discoveries if medical researchers abandon their practice of waiting until their findings are published in peer-reviewed journals before informing the press of important research results. That is because the public release of new medical information allows people to use that information in order to improve their health, but the peer-review process is unavoidably very slow.
这个argument中第一句其实是个假设情况，public health will improve基于什么的理论，后面是证实是否真实，后面最后一句说peer-review process is unavoidably very slow，那这个假设情况就不存在。也就是结论是Public health will not improve because peer-review process is unavoidably very slow. 根据这个conclusion,可以看到它的答案这是基于这个conclusion来的。
下面这道题挺难的，有兴趣的人可以试试。我给一个考到171的人试过，她也说挺难的，而且她和我解释是思路也是从argument的conclusion出发。
When volcanic lava solidifies, it becomes uniformly magnetized in the direction in which the Earth's magnetic field points. There are significant differences in the direction of magnetization among solidified lava flows from different volcanoes that erupted at different times over to,e/ Since lava flows differing by thousands of years in age often have very similar directions of magnetization, the change in the direction of the Earth's magnetic field must take place very gradually over hundreds of thousands of years.The argument that the direction of the Earth's magnetic field has changed over time requires the assumption that
A. only lava can be used to measure the direction of the Earth's magnetic field as it existed in the distant past.
B. a single volcano can produce lava of differing consistencies during different eruptions
C. not all solidified lava has changed the direction of its magnetization unpredictably
D. there are fewer volcanic eruptions now than there were millions of years ago
E. as lava flows down the side of a volcano, it picks up magnetized rocks

Daken

我这个人比较critical，所以做assumption都喜欢把所有的选项都negate掉然后看是否会有weaken conclusion的效果，如果有那就是assumption了~

cathy说的最后题用negate的方法最好做了 答案是C  
negate下 C 就变成了：all solidified lava has changed the direction of its magnetization unpredictably
如果都unpredictably，还怎么达到conclusion ‘Earth's magnetic field has changed over time ’
所谓unpredictably应该是随机的，那如果这个岩浆的形成是随机的，那必然不可能和地球的磁向有关系，如果没关系，那么就不能从岩浆的流向推出地球磁向的变化，所以negate后的C项是个大weaken.所以C是assumption

这题木有gap出现，是个defend题。即eliminate other possibilities.

Daken

对于你问的
Public health will improve more quickly in the wake of new medical discoveries if medical researchers abandon their practice of waiting until their findings are published in peer-reviewed journals before informing the press of important research results. That is because the public release of new medical information allows people to use that information in order to improve their health, but the peer-review process is unavoidably very slow.

我的看法是 先找conclusion和premise 有gap 堵gap，没gap 堵other possibility

P: the public release of new medical information allows people to use that information in order to improve their health
P2：but the peer-review process is unavoidably very slow

C：Public health will improve more quickly in the wake of new medical discoveries if medical researchers abandon their practice of waiting until their findings are published in peer-reviewed journals before informing the press of important research results.

放出消息人们能提高健康----peer reviw阻挡放出消息的速度---因此研究人员不应该等东西发表在已经peer review的杂志上。

我想到的一个assumption是：未经peer review的info不会对健康造成损害

cathycathyhan

Daken,谢谢你的方法。我看到普林斯顿分析历年题目的Assumption，很多题目他们分析的思路都是作出weaken的，如果把assumption否定掉，看是否能够对结论产生影响，如果能够产生影响就可以成为assumption，有时候assumption的漏洞并不是很明显，所以用weaken的方法非常好。