FACTS, INFERENCES AND JUDGEMENTS


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FACTS, INFERENCES AND JUDGEMENTS

FACTS:

  1. They can be verified or discovered
  2. Applicable to all – Universal truths.
  3. Anything that is seen, heard or read is a fact.
  4. Anyone else’s opinion stated by the author is a fact. (The personal opinion will become a judgement)
  5. Figures, Statistics or other data without an opinion attached to it is a fact. ( with an opinion attached becomes an inference).

INFERENCES:

  1. A logical conclusion based on a set of facts. (Logical conclusion meaning, anyone seeing those set of facts should be able to arrive at that.)
  2. Change the facts and the conclusion will no longer be valid.
  3. Inferences are self-explanatory. It tells you “why”. (If you have a statement which looks like an inference and you form a “why” question on it, you should be able to get an answer. If you don’t, it will become a Judgement.)
  4. An inference is an opinion  that doesn’t change according to perspective.
  5. If the set of sentences given to you are connected, you can only do UPLINKING to decide that a statement as an inference. Meaning – You should have the facts preceeding this statement. If the facts are provided as the next statements it cannot be an inference. It will be a judgement.
Ex:
    1. X is a good student when it comes to attendance.
    2. X attends college regularly.
In this example, statement A is a judgement, statement B is a fact.
If you change the order like below –
    1. X attends college regularly.
    2. X is a good student when it comes to attendance.
In this case A is a fact and B is an inference.
  1. One fact can lead to multiple inferences.
  2. Inference will have verbal bridges with facts ( words like leads to, points to, indicates, shows, explains, expresses)
  3. A cause and effect relation ship can be termed as an inference.
  4. A statement backed up by an example in the same sentence will be an inference.

JUDGEMENTS:

1.      Any statement that could lead to an approval or disapproval.
2.      It is the author’s personal opinion.
3.      It is open to challenge.
4.      It doesn’t tell you why. ( see point 3 of inference for clarity)
5.      It changes according to perspective.
A fact or an inference or a judgement will be as per the above mentioned rules but it is not mandatory that each satisfies all the conditions.

Some examples:


-Rahul says that he likes federer’s back hand. – FACT (Someone else’s opinon)
-I like federer’s back hand – JUDGEMENT (Author’s opinon)
-Galloping real estate prices and hardening interest rates mean difficult times for the great Indian middle class. – INFERENCE ( Notice the verbal bridge – mean)
-The maharastra government seems to have developed a sweet tooth – having pumped in hundreds of crores to sugarcane, the cash starved government is now set to help mango. – INFERENCE ( maharastra government has developed sweet tooth.. why? You get an answer)
-The current season is likely to see the output drop to less than 3 lakh tonnes. – JUDGEMENT ( the phrase is likely means the author’s opinon. And doesn’t tell why the output is going to drop)
-The Clinton camp feels that the attack was largely an act of nervousness on the part of senator obama’s camp because senator Clinton was ahead in the opinon polls to win the democratic nomination to run the president. – FACT (the phrase the Clinton cam feels… we can verify whether Clinton camp feels so or not)
A- The rise of Indian currency will impact exporters adversely – FACT (rise of currency will always impact exporters adversely – universal truth)
B- Exporters will need to consider how to protect their operating margins- INFERENCE (by uplinking)




UPSTREAM, DOWNSTREAM, LATERAL AND IRRELEVANT

When dealing with these questions one has to remove all the notions of grammar, para-jumbles, FIJs.
One has to keep in mind that this is purely based on idea re-construction , not sentence or paragraph re-construction.
These follow the standard essay structure shown below –

Introduction – These will be the UPSTREAM statements
Explanation – This will be the MAIN statement
Examples – These will be the LATERAL statements
Conclusion – These will be the DOWNSTREAM statements.


UPSTREAM:

  1. An upstream statement serves as an intro to the topics or ideas put forth in the main statement.
  2. If the main statement talks about multiple things, an upstream statement could be about any of those things. So there can multiple upstream statements connected to a main statement.
  3. The main statement is an explanation or elaboration of the upstream statement.
  4. The upstream statement need not be the first sentence of any paragraph or passage.
  5. It need not look like an opening statement.


DOWNSTREAM:

  1. It is a logical continuation of the main statement.
  2. It will be the next idea to be discussed in the idea flow.
  3. It can act as an inference/assumption/conclusion/interpretation based on the main statement.
  4. Without the main statement, the downstream statement is not possible.

LATERAL:

  1. A lateral statement talks about the same idea in the main statement.
  2. It proves/provides evidence or examples to the main statement.

Anything that falls outside the scope of the main statement will be an IRRELEVANT statement. It can be independent of the main statement. It can exist without the main statement. There is no idea co-relation between them.

Example:
MS – It is the suburban destinations in major metros that have witnessed real estate appreciation of 20 to 25% in the last 12 months. Leading the pack is Chennai, where there has been a 30% increase. It is followed by NCR, Bangalore and kolkata, which has also seen phenomenal growth as more and more development is happening there and grade A developers are moving in.
1)      With the consistent growth of IT/ITES businesses in the suburbs, the incentives of living close to work, has given a fillip to the suburban markets
2)      While considerable growth has been observed in the recent past, it is quite likely that this trend will continue.
3)      India has seen a significantly high level of economic growth with increase in per capita incomes. This has partially contributed to the increase in property prices.

The main idea in the main statement is the appreciation of real estate prices.
Statement 1 talks about the cause for that so this idea has to precede it and hence becomes an upstream statement. Statement 3 also talks about the reason of increase in real estate prices. Hence this also becomes an upstream statement.

Statement 2 talks about the continuation in the increase in the prices in the future also. So this becomes a downstream statement.

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