#8 - Specific Reference, Must Be True, Purpose

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below! Thank you!

[jojokhali]

I do not understand why the correct answer is choice "C" as I put choice "B" for my answer. Can someone explain?

[Adam Tyson]

Good question, jojokhali, as answer B does seem to be worth a second look as a contender, in my opinion. Let's check what the question is asking of us:

The language "primarily in order to" in the stem means "why" - why did the author bring up alibis? My first step is to return to that first sentence and re-read it, after which I will prephrase why I think he mentioned alibis. When I do this, I see that "confirm or disconfirm alibis" is part of a list of things that interviewers will hope to do with the information they get from witnesses they interview. It's about how they will use the information they get, and not about the content of that information. Okay, with that prephrase in mind I head to the answer choices.

Answer B, looked at in light of this prephrase, is not so attractive, is it? First, it is about the kind of information that the interviewers GET, not about how they will use that information. Worse, though, is that this answer is about the information they will get from suspects, but the language in that paragraph was about witnesses, a much broader group that might include suspects but might also include others, like victims and bystanders. Answer B brings up new information about suspects that is not in the first paragraph and not in my prephrase, so it is a loser. Even if I hesitate a bit and decide to keep it, when I get to answer C I am going to toss out B because C is a perfect match for what I was looking for. It's about how the info is being used, not what the info itself contained. Boom, winner!

Little differences like that matter a lot on this test! Every word counts, so read carefully! If you had it down to those two contenders, you should focus on the differences between them to determine which is better, and in that process you might catch the inclusion of "suspects" vs the reference to "use".

Be careful! Good luck out there!

[ashpine17]

So I'm assuming the trap for this question is B. And I picked B. Is B incorrect because the information the police try to get from the suspects are not the alibis themselves but information to confirm or disconfirm alibis?

[Robert Carroll]

ashpine,

The problem is that the information isn't from suspects. It's from cooperating witnesses. If Smith is a suspect, and Smith claims to have been at Bar Louie at 8 PM on Saturday, I can ask Jones whether Smith was at Bar Louie at 8 PM on a Saturday. In other words, Jones may have information relevant to Smith's alibi. In fact, it makes a lot more sense that way - why would the suspect be a cooperating witness?

Robert Carroll

[domthedestroyer]

Echoing what others have said, the MAIN reason choice B is wrong is that it uses the word "suspects" whereas the first paragraph only mentions witnesses. A suspect is NOT a witness, as those are two distinct categories in the realm of criminal justice.