I don't know if you know but I'm an expert finger painter. Look at this beautiful ocean scape that I
just did! Isn't it nice, there's a whale jumping out of the ocean. All right, enough painting, enough art,
down to business. Let's talk about The Official Guide to the GMAT and more
reading comprehension questions. We are looking at question number four which is the last question in
uh this this series. We've done one, two, three and looked at the passage. So, as a
reminder of the passage: um the main idea here is schooling. There's two theories uh the structure,
the first paragraph is the introduction. Second paragraph is all about the theory, and third
paragraph is critics of theory, a introduction of theory b, and the fourth paragraph is about
theory b. And then finally the tone is balanced -ish and uh uh they, the author is basically just
presenting two ideas. Uh there's not the authors, I wouldn't say the author is biased or has a real
stake in any one of them. Question number four is a main idea question and that's because uh the
question says what is the primary purpose of the passage. That is a very clear clue uh for a main
idea question. That means that our approach is going to be attack the passage, which we did
rephrase the question, you don't really need to rephrase these, but basically just know
what's the main idea of this passage. What's great is you could easily skip number three
if you're taking good notes and have a good sense of the passage. I already know
that it's about two theories of schooling we've been talking about that. Um and then
the real key is just going through the answer choices and eliminating anything that is wrong.
So in order to find wrong answers it's good to know the common wrong answers
for main idea questions. So uh one common wrong answer is a distortion. So adding a word in there
that makes the answer wrong, when everything else that there is right that would be a distortion.
Um extreme words or language, this is you'll notice these if you're paying attention to
the tone of the passage and the author's purpose. The extreme answer choices will stand out because
there's something there that just doesn't sound right with the tone of the passage.
And then anytime that there is a detail from the passage, so it
is something that's in the passage but doesn't really encompass everything that the passage is
about that's going to be wrong. And then finally anything new, if it's on the topic but not
really about what's in the passage then that's going to be wrong as well. Okay, so let's look at
our answer choices. Answer choice a says that the passage is presenting two different theories. Wow,
great that's exactly what we're looking for. We've been talking about how the passage presents two,
two ideas, uh there isn't really any bias there. Um, and it's just describing these two theories.
So, answer choice a is our answer. So, let's look at these wrong answers. Um answer is b
talks about analyzing techniques. This is new information, there's nothing about techniques
in the passage. There is some analysis but no, you're not analyzing techniques you're looking at
theories. Finally c, defending ideas this is a distortion. There are ideas but the author again
isn't biased, isn't arguing for one idea over the other so there's no defense that is a distortion.
Answer choice d, uh refuting beliefs this is extreme and a little bit of a distortion too.
You might think beliefs could also be theories but they're not, they're different and then refuting
again, refuting is extreme. There's no refutation in the passage at all. Um it's just a presentation.
Finally answer choice e, uh revealing new evidence. Oh this would be cool evidence, I said evidence,
that's weird, um so this is new information. Uh there's nothing
in the passage about some new reveal that we haven't heard from or knew about before uh
the theories that are discussed, seem to have been uh talked about for a while. There's even enough,
one of them has been around long enough for there to be critics of it, so this is wrong
as well. All right, we're all done. That was it. So easy, all right, if you need any help with
what we talked about feel free to leave comments down below. Um and also feel free to head over to
gmat.magoosh.com for even more help with your GMAT studies! All right, be excellent to the universe!