这篇文章我们只探讨第一个问题——你要写什么。首先,我们来看一道argument的真题:The following appeared in an announcement issued by the publisher of The Mercury, a weekly newspaper.“Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago, The Mercury’s circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best way to get more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of The Bugle, at least until circulation increases to former levels. The increased circulation of The Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper.” 上面的材料是出自Mercury报纸的出版商所说的一段话,因为呢,五年前出了一种低价的报纸,叫Bugle,所以Mercury在读者数量上锐减了10000人。所以,Mercury必须降价,降的比Bugle还低,把这种政策至少贯穿到发行量回归到以前。同时,一旦Mercury的传播量上去了,对那些想在报纸上做广告的商户就更具备吸引力了。 针对这段论述,我们究竟要写什么呢?我们不妨看看,GMAT的官方在题干里是怎么说的吧:Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underlie the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.读了上面一段话,你会发现,一篇argument的本质,其实是杂糅了很多你在CR学习过程中针对不同题型要考虑的因素,但你要把这些所有的因素放到对一篇文章的考虑中,例如:
形成明确的逻辑链,陈述什么是原因,什么是结果。
找出逻辑链的 assumption
通过各种方式weaken这个argument。
Evaluate这个argument。
其中,weaken整个argument是最重要的一环,也是你写作的核心。 这时,我们不妨提一提在AW中流传已久的“七宗罪”,即网上公认的对argument几种较好的反驳方式。 第一宗罪无因果联系 The author commits a fallacy of causal oversimplification. The line of the reasoning is that because A occurred before B, the former event is responsible for the latter. (The author uses the positive correlation between A and B to establish causality. However, the fact that A coincides with B does not necessarily prove that A caused B.) But this is fallacious reasoning unless other possible causal explanations have been considered and ruled out. For example, perhaps C is the cause of these events or perhaps B is caused by D. 这里其实说的就是两个问题:
推出结论的还有其它可能的额外因素
原因A推出结论B是建立在一个A先发生,B才发生的逻辑之上,而往往可能这个逻辑是错误的。
具象化到我们上述的例子中,应该是这样的批判方式: 例如,argument里写由于五年前出现了一种低价的报纸叫Bulge,所以Mercury的销量就锐减了。 根据第一宗罪,很可能还有外因。例如,很有可能就是报纸的产业本身不景气了,所有的报纸都卖不好,当然销量会锐减。 还有可能就是原因A并不一定先于结论B发生。例如有可能在Bulge出现之前,Mercury的销量就已经处于了极度下滑的趋势。 第二宗罪样本不足 Insufficient-sample The evidence the author provides is insufficient to support the conclusion drawn from it. One example is logically unsounded to establish a general conclusion (The statistics from only a few recent years are not necessarily a good indicator of future trends), unless it can be shown that A1 is representative of all A. It is possible that.... In fact, in face of such limited evidence, the conclusion that B is completely unwarranted. 这里讲的道理也比较简单:就是作者用来当证据的理由并不充分,往往体现在数据一类。例如一个短期的数据统计并不能说明未来的大走向等。 具象化到我们的例子中,例如argument中提到,declined by 10000 readers。根据第二宗罪,10000读者其实是个很模糊的概念,并不足以说明减少的读者“多”。减少10000读者难道就不可能是一个偶然波动的情况吗 ——— 也许这个报纸本来的读者有1000万人,那1万仅仅只是九牛一毛。 第三宗罪错误类比 (based on a false analogy )<横向> The argument rests on the assumption that A is analogous to B in all respects. This assumption is weak, since although there are points of comparison between A and B, there is much dissimilarity as well. For example, A..., however, B.... Thus, it is likely much more difficult for B to do.... 简而言之,这里讲的是一种错误的“类比”,所谓类比,就是认为事件A是“可移植”或“可复制”到事件B的。而实际A和B之间的诸多差异导致了这种复制的不可行。 具象化到我们举出的实际例子,就是Mercury针对“低价”的策略argument中认为Bugle采取了低价,就能吸引走了流量,故而Mercury也可以采取低价吸引用户。这并没有考虑到两家报纸的在内容和其它方面的差异性,以及读者的消费水平等。 第四宗罪时地全等 all things are equal<纵向> The author commits the fallacy of “all things are equal”. The fact that happened two years ago is not a sound evidence to draw a conclusion that.... The author assumes without justification that the background conditions have remained the same at different times or at different locations. However, it is not clear in this argument whether the current conditions at AA are the same as they used to be two years ago. Thus it is impossible to conclude that.... 第三宗罪的类比是两件不同但相似事物之间的错误类比,而第四宗罪则讲的是同一个事物在不同场景下(例如不同时间段,不同地点等)的错误对比。就例如,晓明过去英语不好,但不代表他现在英语也不好;而Baby喜欢在法国自拍,不代表她喜欢在美国自拍。 用我们上面的例子作解释:假设前文的argument多描述了一个理由,这个理由为“过往发行量的增加都使得我们的报纸广告业务上涨”,那么原argument所下的结论,发行量使得报纸广告业务变好的结论则犯了第四宗罪的错误。 第五宗罪二者择一 Either-Or choice The author assumes that AA and BB are mutually exclusive alternatives and there is no room for a middle ground. However, the author provides no reason for imposing an either-or choice. Common sense tells us that adjusting both AA and BB might produce better results. 这个好理解,即原文犯下了“非此即彼”的错误,认为事情的解决方案和选择都是固定的,而自然忽略了很多其它情况。 例如上述这篇argument,虽然没有明显了“二者择一”这样的选择,但也展现出类似的错误:例如argument中所提供的方案“reduce its price below that of The Bugle”,认为最好的方式就是“更低”的价格,将逻辑指向了一种“价格低,则销量高;而价格高,则销量低”的二选一困境,实际上,同时保证价格和销量的方式还有很多的,只是argument一直没有走出这个大格局。 第六宗罪可疑调查 survey is doubtful The poll cited by the author is too vague to be informative. The claim does not indicate who conducted the poll, who responded, or when, where and how the poll was conducted. (Lacking information about the number of people surveyed and the number of respondents, it is impossible to access the validity of the results. For example, if 200 persons were surveyed but only 2 responded, the conclusion that...would be highly suspect. Because the argument offers no evidence that would rule out this kind of interpretations,) Until these questions are answered, the results of the survey are worthless as evidence for the conclusion. 这种情况比较容易判断,当argument中出现明显的一次survey等内容的时候,你就可以通过调查的方式,得到数据的方法直接质疑。 第七宗罪结论无据 gratuitous assumption The author falsely depends on gratuitous assumption that.... However, no evidence is stated in the argument to support this assumption. In fact, this is not necessarily the case. For example, it is more likely that.... Therefore, this argument is unwarranted without ruling out such possibility一个结论要成立,必须要有推断结论的理由,有时候理由也是不够的,因为如果某些前提假设不满足,就无法在原因和结论间建立合理的逻辑关系。这些情况,都统称为结论无据。 例如我们提到的这篇argument:argument里认为The increased circulation of The Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper。这是一个结论式的观点,但这个结论却没有任何对应的原因支撑,而这个结论要成立的基本条件是要证明“发行量增加和增加报纸广告位吸引力的必然联系。” 看完了七宗罪,是不是有一种醍醐灌顶的感觉? 当然会有,因为“七宗罪”让你从一个“不知道该写什么”的人变成了一个“有好多可以写的人”。 但是,这并不是“万灵药”。很多人看了七宗罪,选了几个“对应”的理由,该套的模板也套了,最终AW的分数仍旧非常惨淡。 第八宗罪我们回归到AW考试的本身——在30分钟的时间内,你要完成从读题,审题,到最终写作一篇400词左右的文章,时间很紧张。 而从上文,我们可以看到一个事实——从严格意义上,世界上没有无懈可击的论断。因此要否定一篇Argument,很多同学的本质问题并不是“写什么”,而是写“哪些”。欲加之罪,何患无辞,而真正要忧患的是要从诸多“罪”里挑出最本质的。 所以,我们这里谈到了第八宗罪——滥用七宗罪。一篇好的文章,weaken的方式有千万种,但每种方式weaken的程度却大不相同,有的削弱很强,有的削弱很弱,而你的文章里,必然要明确先展示出“强削弱”的内容。 而如何迅速的锁定强削弱呢?这就要回归到一道逻辑题的本质——找到逻辑链。 我们这里重述一下上面提到的材料The following appeared in an announcement issued by the publisher of The Mercury, a weekly newspaper.“Since a competing lower-priced newspaper, The Bugle, was started five years ago, The Mercury’s circulation has declined by 10,000 readers. The best way to get more people to read The Mercury is to reduce its price below that of The Bugle, at least until circulation increases to former levels. The increased circulation of The Mercury will attract more businesses to buy advertising space in the paper.” 按照以前我们讲逻辑题CR里的方法,来梳理一下以上材料里的逻辑。 逻辑链1:低价报纸B在五年前出现➡报纸M的读者直线下降10000人 逻辑链2:将报纸M的定价定的比B还低➡就能增加M报纸的读者 逻辑链3:M报纸的发行量上升➡ 更多的商人或机构会购买M上的广告位。 那么,分别Weaken上面的三条逻辑链,我们有哪些Weaken的理由呢?