#1 - In constructing a self-driving robotic car, engineers

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[EmiliaGrace]

I got this question right on the June test but then I redid this section again in July and I got it wrong. What type of question is this? I chose C the second time around.

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, EmiliaGrace,

This is a Must Be True—Fill in the Blank question. For problems such as this, when you read the stimulus, you might find yourself observing that the author is "going somewhere" with his or her argument. You should also notice the "Hence," at the beginning of the sentence with the blank. The "hence" is a conclusion indicator word and lets you know that you need to supply a conclusion for the argument in the blank provided.

The conclusion you supply should:

• Be well supported by the other information in the stimulus.
• Attempt to complete the author's train of thought. Where is the author going with this information?

Thus, you should approach these questions with some of the same strategies as you would a Must Be True question. Make sure that the answer you choose has good evidence supporting it in the stimulus. However, you need to make sure the answer you choose also is in sync with the direction of the author's reasoning.

For this question, what do we know?

1. Self-driving car engineers face the problem of crashes and congestion.
2. These problems also occur in schools of fish.
3. Fish have principles that help them avoid crashes and congestion.

Where's the author going with this? How do these facts relate to each other? It is likely that the author is trying to make a conclusion about how engineers should work on self-driving cars and relate this issue to the issue of schools of fish. What would be a fair statement about how engineers might apply this fish knowledge?

Do we know for sure that it is always advisable for engineers to look to the natural world for guidance?

No, this statement is too strong and out of scope. It goes beyond the information about the fish to talk about the natural world in general and also uses the extreme language "always." This is why (C) is not adequately supported by the text.

Answer choice (D) both develops on the author's train of thought and is in sync with the information in the text. Maybe it would be a good idea for self-driving car engineers to think about fish once in a while for help with traffic problems. Is this a fair statement? Sure. Is it in sync with the author's train of thought? Sure.

Great question. I hope this helps!