Welcome! We are diving into the Official Guide
to the GMAT and we're working through reading comprehension questions and we're on question
number three. In a previous video um we went through the passage and attacked the passage
as a refresher of what the passage is all about I wrote down the main idea structure
and tone here. So the main idea is the passage about two ideas or two theories of schooling
the structure first paragraph is the introduction. Second paragraph is about the theory a or idea a.
Paragraph number three is about the critics of theory a and then introduces introduces, excuse me,
theory b which talks about the confusion effect and the fourth paragraph is all about theory b
uh and then the tone it's balanced-ish and then uh basically the author is sort of unbiased here
generally just presenting the two theories, not arguing for one or the other.
Okay so uh like I said we're in question number three which is a detailed question, and you might
ask, Kevin how do you know it's a detailed question? That is an excellent question um so in the passage,
we're in this book, there's newer ones but you'll find this question in the new ones as well.
According to the explanation, so anytime I see that phrasing "according to the passage", "according to the
explanation", I know I'm dealing with a detailed question um I'll continue reading according to
one explanation of the confusion effect a fish that swims in a school with a greater advantage
for survival if it does something. So um now that I know I'm dealing with a detailed question I know
what my process should be or my approach to uh this question. So we've already attacked the
passage we can rephrase the question, they're asking about the confusion effect and they
want to know what sort of advantage the confusion effect gives a school of fish or what theory b says
the advantage is. I would do some research in the passage so I know from the structure that
I wrote down that probably be focused on the fourth paragraph, that's where there's two sort
of benefits that are described of the confusion effect. Then I would anticipate the answer and then
finally eliminate any wrong answers. Um remember we want to work on eliminating wrong answers first
instead of just trying to find the right answer I find it easier to eliminate wrong answers because
there's more of them and it helps to narrow in on what is right about the right answer
and it gets you thinking about how something is wrong. Sometimes there's only one small thing in an
answer choice that's wrong and you need to find that one small thing in order to eliminate it.
Um and that helps you to really confirm the right answer if you can't find anything wrong with it
then you know you found the right answer. So there are common wrong answers in detail questions,
one is an inference where the um answer choice synthesizes information from two different places
in the passage. Another one is distortion where it takes information from the passage and twists it
and then finally anytime you see an answer choice that just adds new information even if it's on
the same topic that's going to be wrong there has to be something in the passage that says
what the answer choice is saying if you don't find that then it's going to be wrong answer.
Okay, let's take a look at our answer choices. So answer choice a says that um it uh
so remember we're talking about theory b and it's talking about being visible at 200 meters this is
a perfect example of a distortion answer choice because this description is of theory a not theory
b so they want to make sure that you are searching the right part of the passage and not just finding
information that's in the passage. You have to know what the question is asking. So I know I'm
looking for theory b information that was theory a. Answer choice b talks about the fish being in the
front of this group or in the rear of the group there's nothing in the passage that talks about
the placement of the fish in the schooling group so I know this is new information and wrong.
Answer choice c talks about whether it's a small group or a large group
again the passage doesn't go into the size of the schooling group.
Um if you look at the fourth paragraph there's nothing about how big the school is in terms of
it helping to protect them from predators so this is new information again and wrong. Uh in answer
choice d it talks about how uh the fish are all similar they're all similar in appearance which
is discussed in line 34. um so this is definitely in the passage so this is our right answer. Finally
answer choice e they talk really short answer just says medium size basically again
this is there's no information about the size of the fish or the size of the group discussed in
the passage so this is new information and we can consider it wrong. All right that is it if you have
any questions please feel free to leave comments down below and if you need more help with the GMAT
head over to magoosh.com and we'd be happy to help! Alright be excellent to the universe.