#8 - Specific Reference, Must Be True, Subject Perspective

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[evank28]

Here is my analysis:

I easily eliminated A, C, and E; A and E are not stated and C is contradicted by the passage.

I had discomfort about both B and D. B says that each universe is more likely to contain life, which is slightly skewed; what the cosmologists are saying is that the more universes there, the more likely it is that one of them can sustain life -- but this is the probability of the existence of one universe that can contain life, not the probability of each universe being able to contain life (one universe will have 100% likelihood of containing life and the rest will have near 0, or somewhere between).

However, reading what I just wrote, D states exactly what the cosmologists believe. It is probable that life exists in at least one of [the universes]; not, that there exists one of them where it is probable that life exists.

Tricky wording, and probabilities, but this is clear.

[dimi.wassef@yahoo.com]

I would like more on B and D please!

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Let's talk about those two, Dimi.

Answer choice (B) says that the existence of multiple universe makes each one of those universes more likley to suport life. We don't know that's true. The passage says that the existence of multiple universes makes it more likely that ONE of those universes contains life. That's basically what answer choice (D) says. The passage says that in the multiverse almost all of the universes wouldn't be able to support life, but that it would be probable that at least one would. That's from the sheer variety and number of universe possibilities in a multiverse.

Basically the difference between answer choice (B) and answer choice (D) is if each universe in the multiverse is more likely to have life or if at least one of the universe is likely to have life. Let's pretend we are talking about people with birthdays. If you get a group of say all Americans together, chances are at least one of them has a birthday on February 29th. But getting all of them together doesn't make it more likely that each individual person has a birthday on February 29th. It's just that once the number of people gets high enough, the chance that one rare situation occurs is not unlikely. That's essentially the argument being made here with multiverses. It's not more likely that each indivdual universe has life, but that when you look across all the universes in the multiverse, chances are that at least one will have life.

Hope that helps!

[joliekwok8@gmail.com]

Hi,

Bit of a weird question, but I think I ended up focusing on the "suggests" part of the question, and I interpreted this to mean that the answer I was looking for was, well, suggested and not explicitly stated in the passage. I was about to pick (D) but the cosmologists state "But given the sheer number of possibilities...'right' at least once", which is exactly what (D) is trying to say so I thought I could eliminate it.

My guess is that since (D) and the quoted passage are not exactly the same, the passage is still only suggesting this idea? If the stimulus had said "implied" instead of "suggested", would that change what type of answer we would be looking for? (That being "implied" statements are not explicitly stated?)

Thank you!

[joliekwok8@gmail.com]

Hi,

Wondering if somebody could help me clarify this question? I feel like i'm reading too much into it and would like to understand if i'm interpreting it incorrectly or not. Thanks!

Hi,

Bit of a weird question, but I think I ended up focusing on the "suggests" part of the question, and I interpreted this to mean that the answer I was looking for was, well, suggested and not explicitly stated in the passage. I was about to pick (D) but the cosmologists state "But given the sheer number of possibilities...'right' at least once", which is exactly what (D) is trying to say so I thought I could eliminate it.

My guess is that since (D) and the quoted passage are not exactly the same, the passage is still only suggesting this idea? If the stimulus had said "implied" instead of "suggested", would that change what type of answer we would be looking for? (That being "implied" statements are not explicitly stated?)

Thank you!

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, joliekwok!

For all intents and purposes, the words "infer," "imply," and "suggest" all indicate that we are looking for something for which there is direct, incontrovertible evidence.

If the answer is directly stated in the passage, so much the better.

Now what we are interpreting as directly stated is really a very direct inference. The "'right' set of laws" suggests they are "right" for something, namely life. In other words, I would suggest that you may be making an almost imperceptible inference even here.

However, this is a distinction without a difference. For any question that asks you to find an "implication" or make an "inference," if the evidence in the passage suffices to flat out give you the correct answer, that's the correct answer.

Do not add unnecessary layers of complexity to this analysis.

I hope this helps!