Jonathan Bethune is a Content Developer at Knewton, where he helps students with their GMAT prep.
SPOILER ALERT: If you have not yet seen the film “Inception,” DO NOT READ THIS POST. It gives away the ending and you would be doing yourself a disservice as “Inception” is totally awesome. Go see it, then come back. It’s cool. We’ll wait for you.
Ready?
Was it all just a dream?
That was the question the brain-teasingly fun film Inception has been leaving audience members with since its release. I saw it twice, and immediately found myself in every internet forum debating various theories about the ending. Some people argue that the entire film was kind of “Inception” on the part of director Christopher Nolan. Others argue that Cobb’s father-in-law and Ariadne actually set everything up.
For that particular theory, advocates cite Ariadne’s convenient appearance, unnaturally fast mastery of dream architecture, and powerful influence over Cobb. This argument about Ariadne secretly running the show is interesting because it is evidenced by numerous scenes in the film, as opposed to myriad other fanciful theories that require question-begging and baseless assertions unrelated to the content of the film.
GMAT arguments are constructed in a similar way. You do not need to bring any outside knowledge to a critical reasoning question in order to find the answer. In fact the logic of the questions themselves is extraordinarily linear once you get past the obfuscating language. All arguments have three parts: evidence, assumptions, and conclusion. There may also be some random details and trivia thrown in as a distraction, so be mindful of what is relevant and what isn’t.
Evidence is any explicitly stated premise in support of an argument. An assumption is an unstated premise that connects evidence to the conclusion. The conclusion is the main point of an argument – the opinion that the writer wants to leave you with.
For example, I might argue that Cobb is dreaming at the end of the film. For evidence, I could cite the fact that Saito’s ability to fix Cobb’s situation with a single phone call is unrealistic and dream-like. However this requires the assumption that the reality of the film should mirror our reality i.e., what is realistic in our world would be realistic in the film’s world. This is a dubious assumption considering the world of Inception is one where people can enter each other’s dreams with a machine.
Let’s try a GMAT Inception Question. It’s not totally GMAT-like since you will need to have seen the film for context (whereas on the GMAT you won’t ever need to draw on outside knowledge):
There are many competing theories as to whether or not Cobb is awake at the end of the film Inception. However a few key details strongly support the idea that Cobb is indeed awake and successful in his bid to return home. For one, we know that Saito and he recognized one-another in limbo, and a short camera shot implies that Saito shot Cobb and himself to escape. Furthermore, he is able to see his children’s faces, which he could not imagine in the dream world as he left home before calling out to them one last time. Therefore it is likely that Cobb successfully made it out of limbo and returned home to his children.
Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the reasoning of the above conclusion?
A. Though Cobb and Saito recognize each other, we never clearly see Saito shoot Cobb or himself to escape, which suggests that they both could still be in limbo.
B. Cobb’s children appear to be wearing slightly different clothing, which suggests that he has been away for some time.
C. Time passes much more quickly in Saito’s limbo world than it does on the airplane where Cobb’s team began their mission.
D. Cobb raised his children for years, and could easily have remembered their faces if he had been tricked into believing he had woken up.
E. The top that Cobb uses to figure out whether or not he is dreaming is unreliable since it originally belonged to his wife.
The right answer will be revealed in the comments.
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- Five Steps to Getting a 6 on Your GMAT Essays
- Great GMAT Essay from Knewton student
Read the full article: Trapped in GMAT limbo: what Inception can teach us about GMAT rhetoric