Class 17: Inferences

 

Inference questions ask you to consider the argument or stimulus and to go beyond the information in the passage to reach additional statements based on evidence and reasoning. Inference questions often require you to create a conclusion of an argument where one does not already exist. However, you may also be asked to create an overall conclusion, in which case, there may already be a conclusion to the argument but you have to create the overall conclusion. In recent tests, questions have even asked students to infer what a premise of an argument might be. 

We'll delve into the logical reasoning inference rules of modus ponens, modus tolens, modus tollendo ponens, discuss how to diagram difficult abductive and causal arguments, and learn that the correct answer to an inference question truly can be determined like it's a math problem!