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【逻辑入门】（五）Proceed by

Common prompts for Proceed by:
• The argument proceeds by . . .
• The professor derives her conclusion by . . .
• The method of reasoning the argument employs is to . . .
• The response to the director’s argumentation is . . .

Before you look at the answer:
1. Pinpoint the main conclusion in the passage. (Read my previous Main Point post.)
2. Separate the premises from everything else. After you find the main point, don’t assume that all the other statements are premises; they might include opposing viewpoints, background information, and concessions.
3. Then, in your own words, describe how the argument unfolds: “the author presents a recent study and then refutes the same study by showing that its sample is unrepresentative.” Avoid looking att he answers until you have forced yourself to describe the overall structure of the argument.

Now look for the answer that most accurately describes what you just described.
1. Focus on the active clause of each answer to help yourself move through the maze of the answer choices quickly.
2. The correct answer must describe exactly what’s happening in the passage. Make sure every word of that answer correlates with some part of the passage. In other words, translate the abstract terms into concrete terms from the passage.
If you pay attention to my previous posts, you might have a feeling of Déjà vu. That means you did pay attention to my discussions. Congratulations.The above steps are almost a verbatim copy of the “Role/Boldface” post. Why?Because all arguments are the same and both posts deal with the ways to present an argument. Once you know what is the premise, what is the main conclusion, and how to get from thepremise to the conclusion, you pretty much understand the whole argument. GMAT CR questions are walk in the park once you figure out the logical path therein using your brain power and laser-sharp eyes.

The following are some sample questions which you might want to take a look at:
1) Whittaker: There can be no such thing as the number of medical school students who drop out before their second year, because if they drop out, they never have a second year.
Hudson: By your reasoning I cannot help but become rich, because there is similarly no such thing as my dying before my first million dollars is in the bank.
Hudson responds to Whittaker by

(A) showing that a relevantly analogous argument leads to an untenable conclusion
(B) citing a specific example to counter Whittaker’s general claim
(C) pointing out that Whittaker mistakes a necessary situation for a possible situation
(D) claiming that what Whittaker says cannot be true because Whittaker acts as if it were false
(E) showing that Whittaker’s argument relies on analyzing an extreme and unrepresentative case

2) Some people have been promoting a new herbal mixture as a remedy for the common cold. The mixture contains, among other things, extracts of the plants purple cone-flower and goldenseal. A cold sufferer, skeptical of the claim that the mixture is an effective cold remedy, argued, “Suppose that the mixture were an effective cold remedy. Since most people with colds wish to recover quickly, it follows that almost everybody with a cold would be using it. Therefore, since there are many people who have colds but do not use the mixture, it is obviously not effective.” Which one of the following most accurately describes the method of reasoning the cold sufferer uses to reach the conclusion of the argument?

(A) finding a claim to be false on the grounds that it would, if true, have consequences that are false
(B) accepting a claim on the basis of public opinion of the claim
(C) showing that conditions necessary to establish the truth of a claim are met
(D) basing a generalization on a representative group of instances
(E) showing that a measure claimed to be effective in achieving a certain effect would actually make achieving the effect more difficult.