Main Point and Conclusion

[pacer]

Main Point and Conclusion - Are these the same thing?

Or is the conclusion usually something that is explicitly stated and the main point is the overall belief or opinion of the author?


For example, using the argument stimulus from PT35, S1, Q11

Conclusion = "These studies are deeply flawed"
This is explicitly stated in the stimulus.

Main Point (from my interpretation): Bilingual children do not have a reduced "conceptual map" as some people have come to argue.
This is not explicitly stated but I think that this is the opinion or viewpoint that the author holds about bilingual children.


Can you clarify if the conclusion and main point are truly separate concepts? (In the context of LR and also RC sections).

Thanks,

Pacer

[David Boyle]

Main Point and Conclusion - Are these the same thing?

Or is the conclusion usually something that is explicitly stated and the main point is the overall belief or opinion of the author?


For example, using the argument stimulus from PT35, S1, Q11

Conclusion = "These studies are deeply flawed"
This is explicitly stated in the stimulus.

Main Point (from my interpretation): Bilingual children do not have a reduced "conceptual map" as some people have come to argue.
This is not explicitly stated but I think that this is the opinion or viewpoint that the author holds about bilingual children.


Can you clarify if the conclusion and main point are truly separate concepts? (In the context of LR and also RC sections).

Thanks,

Pacer

Hello Pacer,

Main point and conclusion are fairly synonymous a lot of the time, but you could say that main point can be somewhat broader than the conclusion.
You say the conclusion is "These studies are deeply flawed". Narrowly, maybe, but you do flesh it out, above, by discussing bilingual issues. So the conclusion sentence, if it is "...deeply flawed", may not communicate as much as the fleshed-out main point does.
After all, if the stimulus were, "Does vanilla ice cream taste best because vanilla beans are great? Yes. Studies show vanilla beans have magical properties that make your brain enjoy vanilla products more than anything else.": the "conclusion", narrowly speaking, might be the one word "Yes"; but the "main point" may also include explanation about vanilla beans' magical properties etc., which is much more fleshed-out than one word "Yes" could possibly be.

Hope this helps,
David

[pacer]

Thanks David!

I was having problems with the RC section mainly with this topic. I have been applying some of the material I have learned for LR to RC.

When I read the passages, I was able to put them away and tell someone what the passage was about - I was mistakenly thinking that if I am able to do that, I have understood the passage and have not just read something and have no clue of what it is about. But I have realized that what I was doing was just summarizing the passage (reiterating the contents of the passage) without really understanding the author's main point and purpose. I believe that this is the reason behind missing most of the questions. So I am trying to make a distinction between my summary/conclusion of the passage versus the main point whenever I read anything.

[Andrew Ash]

Hi Pacer (and David!),

I just wanted to chime in here and offer my own two cents.

Main Point is a very different concept in Logical Reasoning and Reading Comprehension. In Logical Reasoning, the Main Point is what the author wants you to believe. As you've pointed out, that's a different idea than a simple summary of what the author said; it's actually the central idea they were trying to get across. It sounds like you've had success in identifying that in Logical Reasoning, so I won't discuss it any further (unless you want to!); I'd like to focus more on Reading Comprehension.

Reading Comprehension passages contain lots of statements and arguments, so picking out one that's more "central" than the others is usually going to be hard. Instead, you should actually use your initial strategy: try to summarize what the author said, and then look for the answer choice that contains the same ideas as your prephrase, even if the wording is different.

It's hard to discuss this without a concrete example, so let's look at a specific passage: June 1993, RC section III, second passage, questions 7-13 (gray marketing). This passage has two parts: first the author says that gray marketing is bad, then she discusses three different legal strategies to fix it and decides that one is better than the others. I can't really boil the passage down any further than that, so that's going to be my prephrase for question 7, which is a Main Point question.

Answer choice (A) contains both parts of my prephrase, so I'll keep it as a Contender for now. Answer choice (B) starts out promising, but then it says that "legislators should recognize the futility of trying to control it." This author wouldn't agree that gray marketing is impossible to control, so this answer choice is a Loser. Answer choice (C) doesn't sound like my prephrase at all, so I'll cross it out. Answer choice (D) covers the second half of my summary, but not the first, so it falls into the category of "true, but not the main point," and it's a Loser. Answer choice (E) refers to "increased gray marketing activity," which wasn't in my prephrase or the passage. So that leaves us with answer choice (A), the correct answer.

The strategy we just applied sounds very similar to what you say you're doing with Reading Comprehension now: summarize the passage as concisely as you can, then find the answer that fits your prephrase as closely as possible. So the best thing for you to do is simply to refine your approach, not change it entirely. Sounds like you're on the right track!

Best,
Andrew