RCB 2018 edition p. 182

[Zarie Blackburn]

We recently received the following question from a student. An instructor will respond below. Thanks!

Hi,

I wanted to clarify the response given for one particular question, as mentioned in the subject. The drill requires the reader to identify the location and question type of the question stem. The question is as follows:

"Which one of the following, if true, offers the most support for Rose's hypothesis?"

The answer given is: GR, Strengthen.

I agree with the fact that the question is a Strengthen type, however, I fail to understand why this is a Global Reference. The book defines Global Reference as below:

"Global Reference questions ask about the passage as a whole, or they fail to identify a defined area or isolated concept within the question stem"

Granted, that in the given question stem, the source passage might be entirely based on Rose's hypothesis and hence this might be the reason for your classification of the location as GR. However, when viewed as a standalone question stem, it is only natural to assume that the passage, within its content, also speaks of a concept called Rose's hypothesis. Hence, the reader would assume that the location would be a Concept Reference type?

Please do let me know if this might be right, or if I am missing some other crucial point here that is causing my failure to understand the given answer.

[Jon Denning]

Thanks for the question—it's a good one!

Identifying question stems like this—absent of the full content/context of the passages they follow—is occasionally a tricky business, since the nature of the "reference" they contain may be determined by the text itself! That is, if Rose's hypothesis is an idea presented throughout the passage then the reference would be Global (so "GR" by our naming standards), whereas if Rose's hypothesis only appears in a short portion, maybe a single paragraph or even a few lines, then it's more of a Concept Reference (CR) idea.

We've labeled it Global Reference in this case to emphasize that there's nothing necessarily specific included in the stem, like a line or paragraph mention, but you're sharp to catch the possibility that it could be Concept instead in certain circumstances! So the fact that you're clued in to that distinction tells me you've got this idea figured out...and that's the ultimate goal

Nice work on this one, and I hope that helps clear things up!