Lee primero la afirmación exacta: la prueba debe encajar con TODAS sus partes.
Con tablas, la opción correcta debe ser cierta según los datos Y relevante para la afirmación.
Estrategia paso a paso
Subraya las palabras clave de la afirmación (“más que”, “especialmente”, “pero”).
Comprueba cada número de la opción en la tabla: fila, columna y año.
Trampas habituales
Datos ciertos que no tienen que ver con la afirmación.
Datos de la fila o columna equivocada, o una comparación al revés.
Ejemplo resuelto
Afirmación: “las ventas subieron sobre todo en invierno”. La prueba útil compara la subida del invierno con la de las demás estaciones; el dato del invierno solo no basta.
Preguntas de ejemplo
Intenta responder antes de abrir la solución. Las preguntas están en el idioma del examen.
Pregunta 1
Dificultad fácil≈ 1 min
In the poem “The Thaw,” the speaker, who has spent a long winter in an isolated farmhouse, expresses impatience with how slowly spring is arriving and longs for the season to finally change.
Which quotation from the poem most effectively illustrates this claim?
AA. “The fields lie white beneath the moon, / As still and silver as a spoon.”
BB. “The children skate on Miller’s pond / And shout to hills that lie beyond.”
CC. “I count each drop the icicles spend, / And curse the days that will not end.”
DD. “A single crow calls from the hill, / Then all the valley lies quiet and still.”
Ver respuesta y explicación
Respuesta correcta: C. “I count each drop the icicles spend, / And curse the days that will not end.”
Explicación
The claim is that the speaker is impatient for spring. Counting each drop of melting ice and cursing “the days that will not end” shows the speaker waiting anxiously and resenting how slowly the thaw is happening.
The other quotations describe winter scenes (moonlit fields, children skating, a crow calling) without expressing any impatience or longing for change.
Pregunta 2
Dificultad media≈ 1 min
Archaeologists excavating an ancient house found a row of small, evenly spaced holes in its floor. They propose that the holes once held the wooden posts of a large upright loom that the household used to weave cloth.
Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the archaeologists’ proposal?
AA. Clay weights of the kind used to hold threads tight on upright looms were found near the holes.
BB. Several other houses from the same period contain similar rows of holes.
CC. The holes are too shallow and too narrow to have supported upright wooden posts large enough for a loom.
DD. The house also contained cooking pots and stone tools for grinding grain.
Ver respuesta y explicación
Respuesta correcta: C. The holes are too shallow and too narrow to have supported upright wooden posts large enough for a loom.
Explicación
The proposal depends on the holes having held a loom’s wooden posts. If the holes could not have supported posts of that size, the proposal is directly undermined.
Loom weights near the holes would support the proposal, not weaken it. Similar holes in other houses do not show what the holes held and, if anything, fit the idea of a common household loom. Cooking pots and grinding tools are unrelated to the holes.
Pregunta 3
Dificultad difícil≈ 2 min
Some historians argue that the printing press, which spread across Europe after the 1450s, quickly raised literacy rates. Others are skeptical. They contend that early printed books were far too expensive for most people to buy and that literacy rose substantially only later, once cheap printed pamphlets began to circulate widely in the 1500s.
Which finding, if true, would most directly weaken the skeptics’ contention?
AA. Cheap pamphlets were widely available in many European cities by the early sixteenth century.
BB. Early printed books often cost about as much as a skilled worker earned in several weeks of labor.
CC. Most of the first printed books were religious texts written in Latin rather than in local languages.
DD. Literacy among urban artisans rose sharply soon after presses arrived, before cheap pamphlets were common.
Ver respuesta y explicación
Respuesta correcta: D. Literacy among urban artisans rose sharply soon after presses arrived, before cheap pamphlets were common.
Explicación
The skeptics claim that literacy rose substantially only after cheap pamphlets became common. A sharp rise in literacy among artisans soon after presses arrived, and before pamphlets were common, contradicts that timeline and so weakens their contention.
The spread of cheap pamphlets in the 1500s fits the skeptics’ account. The high cost of early books supports their claim that most people could not buy them. Books in Latin would, if anything, also limit early gains in reading, which is consistent with the skeptics.