What The Author Is Likely To Believe

hendricks

I write to share an observation. Sometimes I struggle with the author's belief type question type in RC even when I have a pretty good grasp of the passage. I just realized that the problem might be because I didn't understand what they were asking me to do.

The source of the problem is assuming the correct answer goes further than necessary. The wrong way to approach it is to assume that they're asking you to take the author's argument and apply it in a new way, consistent with the spirit of the passage. Many wrong answers look like that, and I was falling into that trap.

The correct answers are more conservative. It's almost like we should interpret this question type as if it were a Necessary Assumption type in LR. The right answer feels like it's not really adding anything new.

In short, less is more. The correct answer is more like a MBT or a NA than it is an MSS.

Do you agree?