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Times Square Terrorist Faisal Shahzad Earned MBA from University of Bridgeport | GMAT Logic Fallacy
I’m not exactly proud to announce this, but the recent Times Square terrorist attempt actually involved an MBA graduate.
Faisal Shahzad was caught Monday on board an Emirates flight headed for Dubai.
This is horrible PR for the University of Bridgeport.
Now how is this relevant to the GMAT?Well, when an article like this comes out, a lot of people will make ILLOGICAL conclusions based on the information given. The GMAT exam actually tests you on these very types of logic. If you fall for these logic questions, you will be be penalized on the GMAT exam!
Many people see the headlines with the word “Terrorist” and “Pakistani American” and automatically stereotype and become paranoid about any interaction with a Pakistani American. You cannot illogically conclude that any MBA graduate has the potential to be a terrorist. Nor can you conclude that any Pakistani American is likely to be a terrorist.
On the GMAT Critical Reasoning section, you will be given “background information.” Let the headlines of these terrorist related news articles on Faisal Shazad serve as your background information.
Then the GMAT guys might mention some hypothetical situation—either as part of the question or as a potential answer choice:
“If a dark skinned, Pakistani American male adult were to walk through a heavily populated city like Washington, D.C., then the counter terrorism unit must order Jack Bauer to take him down.”Now, of course common sense tells you that you should use extra precaution based on facts from the past. In this case, the fact is the suspected terrorist is a Pakistani American. So using extra precaution going forward makes sense.
However, be careful of keywords like “MUST” in critical reasoning questions. Reread the sentence above:
“”If a dark skinned, Pakistani American male adult were to walk through a heavily populated city like Washington, D.C., then the counter terrorism unit must order Jack Bauer to take him down.”
Notice answer choices with the word MUST tend to be red flags!
As a reality check, this kind of terrorist related question would NEVER show up on the GMAT exam. Why? Because of political reasons. The guys who administer the GMAT exam are the GMAC folks. They cannot mention anything that is remotely politically offensive. In particular, any potentially politically offensive material can NEVER be the correct answer.
Sometimes you will see answer choices sort of like “All Pakistani Americans are potential terrorists.”—such an answer choice is NEVER the correct answer. If it were the correct answer, then the GMAC guys would totally get sued for millions of dollars.If you ever see anything that is potentially offensive to any racial/ethnic/social group on the GMAT exam, you know that answer choice is no good. In a way, spotting these kinds of inappropriate logic fallacies will help you eliminate answer choices quickly on the GMAT critical reasoning.For more information on the breaking news, please see some of these link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/04/faisal-shahzad-earned-mba_n_562892.html2 responses to “Times Square Terrorist Faisal Shahzad Earned MBA from University of Bridgeport | GMAT Logic Fallacy”
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I found it actually very ironic. Most of the post you are warning about inappropriate logical fallacies focusing on connections between the “dark skinned, Pakistani American male adult” and terrorism. However in the very beginning of the post, it seems to me, you are falling in the same trap of inappropriate generalization by declaring “This is horrible PR for the University of Bridgeport.” Unless it was a quote from other sources, which is not clear from the post, you are making the same faulty inference that you are warning against further in the post. Or am I missing something?
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vb–I’m not quite getting your point.
The statement “This is horrible PR for the University of Bridgeport” is an opinion statement. The difference between opinion vs fact is not what we’re talking about here when it comes to GMAT logic fallacy.
Please do not confuse these two concepts. Logic fallacy is when you apply a relationship in one context to another context with the expectation that that relationship still holds true in the new context.
There is no logic fallacy in the opinion statement you mentioned. Hope that helps.
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