Argumentative Passages and Arguments

Of the two types of passages on the MCAT, argumentative passages are the most common. For this reason, we will begin by diving into the nuances of arguments.

What is an Argument?

An argument is something someone tries to convince you of. Your friend might argue for you going to a party instead of studying for the MCAT. In the CARS section, the author is going to try and convince us, the reader, of their particular point of view. For the purposes of this exam, it doesn’t matter whether we agree or disagree with them instead we want to focus on understanding what it is they are trying to convince us of.

In order to better understand the structure of arguments, we will begin by focusing on what composes an argument. In further lessons, we will look towards other aspects of arguments and as we go through each explore different types of questions.

In total this section, will cover main idea questions, evidence questions, imply questions, infer questions, and application questions.

Parts of an Argument

To begin we will start by deconstructing the parts of an argument and in later lessons explore each part in more detail.

Arguments have two major components, claims and evidence. Claims are the meat of an argument. They are what you should believe and they take a variety of different forms. Evidence on the other hand is why you should listen to and believe my claims. Connecting the two is reasoning. Basically why my evidence supports what I am claiming. Let’s look at a couple of examples to see how this works.

Basic Example 1: Bananas

You should eat bananas every day because they contain a large amount of potassium.

Here I am claiming that you should eat bananas every day my evidence for this claim is that they contain a large amount of potassium. The sentence doesn’t explicitly state why potassium matters and leads you to believe that you should eat bananas. This is where reasoning comes in. Reasoning isn’t always stated and this is one of the places the MCAT loves to ask us assumption questions.

For example, we might be asked the following question. Go ahead and give it a try make sure to read the explanation so you can see how understanding reasoning come into play on the CARS section.

Basic Example 2: Bananas in Reverse

Bananas contain a large amount of potassium therefore you should eat them.

Here the claim and the evidence are the same the order is simply reversed. It is important to note that the order of claims and evidence isn’t terribly important. Sometimes authors will make a claim then back it up other times authors will present the facts then lead you towards certain conclusions.

Advanced Example 1: Civic Activism

These arguments are pretty simplistic but not even remotely close to the MCAT. Let’s look at some arguments that mirror the CARS section a bit better now that you have an initial understanding of claims, evidence, and reasoning.

The proliferation of civic activism in Sweden during the 1970s demonstrated that the country’s populace had a growing desire to live in a more just and equitable society.

Reasoning: Civic activism is a good indicator of people’s desire for justice and equity

Advanced Example 2: Hands in Cinema

In Harun Farocki’s lifelong study of the mute language of manual expressions, the human hand is explored not only as a versatile tool, but as a repository of social memory, a topos in the genealogy of the moving image, and a critical agent in the theory and practice of filmmaking itself. While cinema distinguished itself from previous artistic media through its capacity to salvage and store everyday gestures for later scrutiny, accruing a Bilderschatz for future anthropological research and archeological research, it was also integral to an ongoing process that spurred the progressive withdrawal of the human hand from the manufacturing of images. By adopting a double-pronged approach that considers the programming of bodies and images as integrally aligned, we can trace the gradual demise of craftsmanship and the increasing automation of imaging and perception as engaged across a wide range of Farocki’s essay films, found-footage compilations, and observational documentaries.¹

Reasoning: This double-pronged approach and these film sources show the human hand as a tool and also how the human hand has been withdrawn from creating art (a bit of a stretch I know but do your best with some of the more abstract articles)

Review Exercise: Strikeout

When we get into the more complicated passages it can be really hard to find the claims amongst all of the rhetorical flourishes. We need to be able to see past this complexity and get to the heart of what the author is arguing for. To do that we will introduce our first review exercise.

Review exercises focus on breaking down a passage or set of questions in depth. These exercises are more time-consuming than approaching the passage and question in the first place and aren’t something we would have time to do on the actual exam. Instead, their purpose is to help us build CARS intuition and improve our ability to approach the section as a whole.

In this lesson, we will focus on reviewing by striking out. Our goal here is to go through the passage and strikeout extra details or extra elements of a passage. We will look for in-depth explanations, flowery descriptions, and restatements then get rid of them. Take the previous paragraph as an example and try reading this amended version of the passage.

In Harun Farocki’s lifelong study of the mute language of manual expressions, the human hand is explored not only as a versatile tool, but as a repository of social memory, a topos in the genealogy of the moving image, and a critical agent in the theory and practice of filmmaking itself. While cinema distinguished itself from previous artistic media through its capacity to salvage and store everyday gestures for later scrutiny, accruing a Bilderschatz for future anthropological research and archeological research, it was also integral to an ongoing process that spurred the progressive withdrawal of the human hand from the manufacturing of images. By adopting a double-pronged approach that considers the programming of bodies and images as integrally aligned, we can trace the gradual demise of craftsmanship and the increasing automation of imaging and perception as engaged across a wide range of Farocki’s [stuff] essay films, found-footage compilations, and observational documentaries.

Hopefully, this version is a lot more understandable and overall that is the point of this exercise. To help recognize the more simplistic points and arguments being made in an otherwise complicated passage. We don’t have time to go through each passage and cross out all of the stuff we don’t understand, but we do have time to focus on what is important. By getting good at recognizing what doesn’t matter we also learn how to spot what does. In this way, we start improving our ability to find the structure of the argument more easily.

Skill Recap: Read for Context

In the last lesson, we briefly went over how to read for context when answering definition questions. Let’s reinforce this skill by trying another sample problem based on the passage above.

Homework

• Read one new passage and practice the big picture strategy and highlighting shortcuts
• Start timing yourself on all new passages. Keep a log of how long you spend reading the passage and how long the passage takes with the questions included
• Review one of your previous passages and start using strikeout to see past the complicated language and sentence structure
• Once you have finished strikeout identify as many claims and evidence as you can. Try to identify the reasoning that connects the claims and evidence in the passage. If it isn’t stated in the passage think about some assumptions the author might be making.

Citations

1. Henrik Gustafsson (2021) “A new image of man”: Harun Farocki and cinema as chiro-praxis, Journal of Aesthetics & Culture, 13:1, DOI: 10.1080/20004214.2020.1841977