#5 - Global Reference, Must Be True

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[ChicaRosa]

I don't understand why answer choice E is wrong while answer choice D is correct?

I thought D was correct because Passage B uses goes more in depth about muscle memory and uses recent studies about the topic than Passage A. It gave me an impression that the author of Passage B is an expert.

Thank You!

[Claire Horan]

The question asks about the audience of each passage, not about the passages' authors. You are right in saying that the author of Passage B sounds more like an expert, but that doesn't mean the author is writing for an expert audience. A few clues that suggest the audience is not experts: "Pumping up is easier for people who have been buff before, and now scientists think they know why." This is very informal language that would be unlikely to be used among experts. References to "scientists" and "researchers" throughout the passage suggest that the audience does not consist mainly of scientists or researchers. Analysis of Passage B would definitively rule out answer choice (E).

Passage A focuses on muscle memory related to weightlifting and uses the word "you" throughout. Just the use of the word "you" suggests that this is not for an expert audience, and the focus on weightlifting suggests that this isn't for a general audience. So answer choice (D) is the best answer.

Another way to approach these problems is to imagine where you would be most likely to read a particular passage. I would expect Passage A to be in a weightlifting or training magazine and Passage B to be published somewhere like Scientific American, perhaps.

[TigerJin]

I did get this one correct, but had to eliminate C, first. I am wondering how I could definitively choose D over C. The online reason I did not choose C, was because it sadi that Passage A is for "athletes who work with a trainer", which just seemed overly specific to me as well as the fact that I read articles like these all the time and never saw one with such a target audience before. So, I eliminated it by using outside knowledge, but I would like to know how I could have eliminated it by using the text.

Thanks.

[Jonathan Evans]

TigerJin,

Actually the first part of the reason why you eliminated answer choice (A) did not rely on outside knowledge and is correct. This answer is overly specific and unsupported by the passage. There is nothing to indicate a trainer need be involved.

Remember, these questions are essentially a "must be true" task. You must find evidence to support the answer choice. You may notice that Passage A addresses its audience directly (e.g. "You are likely to add weight more rapidly."). Combined with the content the passage discusses, you have sufficient information to conclude that the first passage is directed towards people who engage in weight training. This information alone is sufficient to eliminate the rest of the answer choices, none of which has a matching description for Passage A. In addition, the audience described in answer choice (C) for Passage B also makes unwarranted inferences. There is no indication in Passage B that the audience would be expected to do any weight training.

So you got the right answer and didn't even need any outside information. Good job!

[TigerJin]

Interesting. Thank you very much!

[lathlee]

I am sorry but never in RC bible (I reread multiple times), I never saw how to solve such a question; what kind of must be true question is this and what is the typical method to solve such question. haha

[Adam Tyson]

This is a fairly weak Must Be True, lathlee, similar to a Most Strongly Supported question, in that the correct answer is the one that is most likely, rather than absolutely certain. I think a good way to prephrase this one is to think about a more typical RC question about Purpose. If you consider the purpose of each passage, you should be able to make a reasonable inference about who the target audience would be.

For example, if the purpose of a passage is to argue for stricter regulation, then you might infer that the audience is a group of people who are able to influence changes in regulation, like legislators or voters. If the purpose is to reexamine the influence of a particular folk musician on the genre, you might infer that the audience is fans of folk music or scholars that study folk music.

Ask yourself "who was this for?" and you'll be on your way to a good prephrase, lathlee!

[quan-tang@hotmail.com]

I think the insider bias actually hindered me to do this question.

as a bodybuilder myself, articles in bb community never phrased like that of passage A, so I automatically bypassed the answer D.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

You have to leave that outside information to the side, quan-tang. Just looking at the text, Passage A uses phrases like "stimulate your muscles" and the "weight you lift" when discussing bulking up. This is a hint that the author is likely talking to people who would be lifting weights regularly. The use of the second person here is a hint as to who the likely intended audience is. The test makers would not expect you to know the style of pieces written for bodybuilders, so that's not particularly helpful for you to consider here.