Dr. Z: Many of the characterizations of my work offered by Dr. Q are imprecise, and such characterizations do not pr...

AdamGraeff June 30, 2020

A vs E

I narrowed down to choices A and E. Can you explain why E is correct over A. It seems to me they both are saying the same thing but flipping the wording of "provides an adequate response" and "fails to provide an adequate response"

Create a free account to read and take part in forum discussions.

Already have an account? log in

shunhe July 2, 2020

Hi @AdamGraeff,

Thanks for the question! So let’s see what Dr. Z is saying here. She’s talking about how Dr. Q’s characterizations of her work are imprecise, and therefore, inadequate for a sound criticism of her work.

Now we’re asked for what can be properly inferred from Dr. Z’s statement. (A) tells us that some of Dr. Q’s characterizations are adequate. Well, we don’t know this. We can’t say anything for sure about if some are adequate ones; we only know that there are inadequate ones.

Now let’s take a look at (E). It tells us that at least one of Dr. Q’s characterizations are inadequate for sound criticism of the work. And that’s exactly what the stimulus tells us, and so is the correct answer. It fails to provide an adequate response; so it’s inadequate, this we can conclude. But we can’t conclude anything about adequacy again, which is why (A) is wrong.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.