Verbal Lecture-10
Resolve the Paradox or Discrepancy:
A paradox is a situation in which two statements are contradictory to each other and we are asked to explain the reason why both statements are true despite being contradictory. i.e we need to resolve the paradox. In short, a paradox is a contradiction between two statements. And we need to explain the paradox. For instance,
It is generally known that people who exercise daily are very good in swimming. But Maria, who exercised only half as many days as Sana did, is much better in swimming than Sana.
Which statement will resolve apparent paradox above?
Although it is mentioned that daily exercise leads to a good swimming skill. Yet Maria who exercised for less days than Sana, is better in swimming than Sana.
Notice that both of the information are facts but contradictory to each others. And we are asked to resolve this apparent paradox. i.e we need to prove that despite both statements are contradictory, none of the statement is false.
In actual exam, you have a similar question and will be asked to resolve the apparent discrepancy or paradox. Resolving the paradox means we need to select a scenario in which both statement are true, despite contradictory to each others. For instance, in the above question the scenario that resolve the paradox is given below:
Explanation:
Although Maria exercised only for fewer days than Sana, she exercised for more than thrice as many hours in a day as Sana did.
or
Maria is a professional swimmer and thus gives more time in practice swimming than exercising.
There are many other statement that can help resolve the apparent paradox. Notice that these scenarios add new information to the argument such that statements in the argument can coexist without any apparent contradiction. Because these scenario resolve that apparent contradiction.
These questions test your ability to understand the information in the argument, and correctly identify the apparent contradiction. Finally, we need to think about new information that can resolve that contradiction. To understand it further, let’s consider another example with little bit difficult scenario:
A research finding on impact of overtime work on mental stress concluded that increase in overtime work will enhance mental stress level. The same finding suggests that the same thing to poor people have the reverse impact. That is, overtime work reduces mental stress.
which of the following, if true, helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy above?
A. Because the research findings were made by poor people, they cannot study the impact on rich people
B. As the research findings were made by rich people, their suggestion about poor people is not making any sense.
C. Overtime work results in more tiredness and hence more mental stress.
D. Poor people mental stress already exists due to the huge burden of expenses that only compensated by overtime work. z
E. Overtime work and mental stress level are independent to each others impact.
Answer Explanation:
Firstly, the contradiction is that if overtime work enhances mental stress, then why the overtime work reduce mental stress with poor people? Before analyzing answer choices, let’s have some self-analysis:
Self-Analysis:
The finding gives reverse result only with poor people, because they might already have mental stress due to lack of sufficient money to pay their expenses. Thus overtime work compensate them more and help them reduce their mental stress. Or there might me similar other reasons. Now let’s go to answer choices one by one:
Choice A: This choice is clearly out of scope. It do not helps to resolve the paradox. We are still confused why the poor have reverse impact of overtime work.
Choice B: This choice is again out of scope. It still leave confusion in the argument statements.
Choice C: We are not looking to find reason why overtime work lead towards mental stress, rather we are looking for why poor have reverse impact.
Choice D: That gives exact reason of what we were looking for. It helps to resolve paradox and helps to make both contradictory statements remain valid and true. Hence this choice is clearly correct answer. But let’s also check other choice.
Choice E: This information is again out of scope, and we do not need such information to solve apparent discrepancy.
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Have you noticed that the correct answer choice gives new information that proves that although statement 1 is true, statement 2 is valid because of the reason given in the new information. This new information can address reason of discrepancy in either first statement (i.e fact) or second statement (i.e fact). As in above example, the new information addresses second fact that poor people have reverse impact. But in some cases, the new information addresses both the contradictory facts simultaneously.
The goal of paradox questions is to resolve the specific paradox that is presented in the argument. Therefore, the correct answer choice would be the one that presents information related to the specific case in the passage
Ways to resolve a paradox:
Note that the correct choice need not conclusively resolve the paradox by attacking on assumptions, rather it may give sufficient information that bypass the conflict in the two statements or facts. Let’s take an example as discuss earlier.
It is generally known that people who exercise daily are very good in swimming. But Maria, who exercised only half as many days as Sana did, is much better in swimming than Sana.
Which statement will resolve apparent paradox above?
Here, if a statement explains that Maria gives more time to swimming than exercise is sufficient enough to resolve the paradox. This new information addresses the second fact that Maria exercise for less number of days than Sana, yet better in swimming than Sana. Note that this statement didn’t resolve paradox conclusively, rather it just bypass the paradox by providing reason why Maria is better swimmer EVEN THOUGH she given less time to exercise.
Additionally, a statement can also resolve the paradox conclusively such as the statement below:
Exercise is not the only thing that makes a person very good swimmer.
Note that this statement conclusively resolve the paradox instead of bypass the conflict. This is done by either proving that there was an ineffective application of the general rule, or the comparison is improper. Thus, there are three different ways that a paradox can be resolved:
1. Ineffective application:
Some arguments includes some proposals or general rule that gives some results in terms of positive change. Yet it also present some paradox by showing these positive change not realized. Perhaps the plan in the proposals were applied incorrectly. This does make sense, because when a plan is not applied correctly, the result might not necessarily the same as expected. For instance,
It is generally known that people who exercise daily are very good in swimming. But Maria, who exercised only half as many days as Sana did, is much better in swimming than Sana.
Which statement will resolve apparent paradox above?
The incorrect implementation of this general rule is expressed in the statement below:
Although Sana exercised for more number of days than Maria, the average weekly hours for exercise by Sana is much less than that of Maria.
2. Improper comparison:
In such way of resolving paradox, the statement shows that the two events or instances are not comparable. For instance, let’s take the same example as discuss earlier:
It is generally known that people who exercise daily are very good in swimming. But Maria, who exercised only half as many days as Sana did, is much better in swimming than Sana.
Which statement will resolve apparent paradox above?
The correct statement that shows improper comparison about the contradictory statements is:
Maria is a professional swimmer, while Sana has aquaphobia.
3. Alternate reasoning:
This type of statements are one of the most common type of answer choices that used to express how the paradox can be resolved. For instance, let’s take a very simple contradictory statements and its alternate reasoning to resolve the discrepancy.
John is better swimmer than Sana, yet he lost the swimming competition.
The alternate reasoning to these contradictory statements (or facts) is:
John was sick at time of competition took place.
Now, let’s discuss the same example as we had discuss earlier.
It is generally known that people who exercise daily are very good in swimming. But Maria, who exercised only half as many days as Sana did, is much better in swimming than Sana.
Which statement will resolve apparent paradox above?
The alternate reasoning to this paradox might be:
Sana has never trained herself to swim, so she cannot swim better than anybody else.
Types of incorrect answer choices:
Enhance contradiction: Instead of resolving contradiction, this choice further increase the confusion and hence contradiction. For instance,
Maria did not get training to swim comfortably, while Sana got such training course with a professional coach.
This statement further increase the confusion of why Maria is better swimmer than Sana.
Out of scope statement: This choice does not address the paradox in the argument and thus irrelevant to the question. Sometimes, this choice includes similar wording as mentioned in the argument to entice the test taker. These are simply trap answer choice, be aware of these and don’t be fool. For instance,
Both Maria and Sana have joined aerobics for 2 months, while Maria utilized more time in jogging than Sana.
This statement is irrelevant to the reason why there exists a conflict between the two contradictory statements. Maria use more time in jogging than Sana is irrelevant, because utilizing more time in a particular type of exercise is out of scope.
I hope you can perform much better in practicing paradox questions.