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Facts Inference and Judgments:

Facts, Inference and Judgments

PART 1:
FACTS:
deal with pieces of information that one has heard, seen or read, and which
are open to discovery or verification. The key word here is "verification". A
fact is a statement that can be verified, i.e. a fact is either true or false.
Facts are statements that may involve numbers, natural phenomena, dates
etc. The characteristics of the statements classified as facts are:
Made after observation or experience. An event cannot become a fact
unless it has occurred.
Confined to what one observes; cannot be made about the future.
Limited number possible.
Not perception dependent. A fact will be agreed to by every person. It does
not change from person to person.
Tends to bring people together in agreement.
Examples:
1) Nearly 2 lac students took CAT last year.
2) Life exists on other planets (although physically not possible to verify, this
statement will be either true or false).
3) I like Pink Floyd more than Metallica (It may not seem so, but this
statement is either true or false. Either I like Pink Floyd more than Metallica
or I dont).
4) The legislature is advocating vigorously against intrusion of judiciary in
parliamentary affairs.
5) A football field is 100 yards long.
NOTE: Notice the difference when a sentence contains subjective or abstract
expressions-6) The music was very loud (NOT a fact as the loudness might
vary from person to person).
7) I found the music very loud (A fact as it is either a truth or a lie. I must
have found the music very loud or not very loud).
Poverty is a curse on mankind (NOT a factcurse on mankind is too
abstract).
9) 20% of the population live below poverty line (Fact).
FACTS STATEMENTS IN CAT 2006 PAPER:
1) The government has been supplying free drugs since 2004, and 35 000
have benefited up to now- though the size of the affected population is 150
times this number.
2) Only about 13 million children in the age group of 6 to 14 years are out of

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Facts Inference and Judgments:

school.
3) The truth is that we have more red tape- we take eighty- nine days to
start a small business, Australians take two.
4) The economies of the industrialized western world derive 20% of their
income from the sale of all kinds of arms.
PART 2:
INFERENCES:
are conclusions drawn about the unknown, on the basis of the known. Notice
the three words conclusions, known and unknown very carefully. They will
give you complete description of what an inference consists of Known- A fact. The first thing an inference should consist of is a fact. This
fact is required to prove another proposition.
Unknown- Something which can be logically proven by the given fact or
the known. Therefore, in an inference an unknown proposition is present
which is to be proven with the help of the fact. Remember that this
proposition has to be proven with the help of another fact.
Conclusion- Once the unknown has been proved with the help of the known
(fact) it is called a conclusion.
Notice the meaning of the word Infer. To infer means
to conclude from evidence; to deduce
to have a logical consequence. (an inference = a conclusion)
Therefore, the process of inference can be summarized by the figure given
below:
Examples:
1) Because the old man stayed indoors all the time and did not receive any
visitors, no one discovered his dead body for days.
2) The footprint warned Robinson Crusoe that there was someone else on the
island.
INFERENCE STATEMENTS IN CAT 2006 PAPER:
1) The recent initiatives of networks and companies like AIDScare Network,
Emcure, Reliance-Cipla-CII, would lead to availability of much-needed drugs
to a larger number of affected people.
2) According to all statistical indications, the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan has
managed to keep pace with its ambitious goals.
3) Every red tape procedure is a point of contact with an official, and such
contacts have the potential to become opportunities for money to change
hands.
4) Even without war, we know that conflicts continue to trouble us- they only
change in color.

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Facts Inference and Judgments:

PART 3:
JUDGEMENTS:
are opinions that imply approval or disapproval of persons, objects,
situations, and occurrences in the past, the present or the future. There is a
fine line of distinction between inferences and judgments. Most of the times
judgments are also based on facts and therefore they seem like inferences.
But there are some ways to differentiate a judgment and an inference Judgments are arguable and contestable. Inferences are rock solid.
Although both judgments and inferences are based on facts, in the latter the
conclusion is so unquestionable that it becomes fact itself.
Judgments are opinions, suggestions and recommendations whereas
inferences are proven conditions.
Judgment statements include a lot of quantities that cannot be measured,
such as happiness, beauty, joy etc.
Many a times, judgments are not accompanied by facts at all but are only
opinion statements. When there is no fact involved, the statement can only
be a judgment statement.
A judgment is an honest attempt to make reasonable observations about
the given facts but they do not conclusively prove anything.
Examples:
1) It is estimated that that 30% of Indians live below poverty line.
(judgment: if it is an estimate, it cannot be a fact).
2) Every mother has only the best interests of her children at her heart. (Is
there a way to look inside a mothers heart?).
3) Because we had three wars with our neighboring country, we should keep
our armed forced ready for the fourth one.
JUDGMENT STATEMENTS IN CAT 2006 PAPER:
1) So much of our day-to-day focus seems to be on getting thins done,
trudging our way through the tasks of living- it can feel like a treadmill that
gets you nowhere; where is the childlike joy?
2) We are not doing things that make us happy; that which brings us joy;
the things that we cannot wait to do because we enjoy them so much.
3) This is the stuff that joyful living is made of- identifying your calling and
committing yourself wholeheartedly to it.
4) When this happens, each moment becomes a celebration of you; there is
a rush of energy that comes with feeling completely immersed in doing what
you love most.
5) Given the poor quality of service in the public service, the HIV/AIDS
affected should be switching to private initiatives that supply anti-retroviral

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Facts Inference and Judgments:

drugs (ARVs) at a low cost.

6) But how ironic it is that we should face a perennial shortage of drugs when
India is one of the worlds largest suppliers of generic drugs to the
developing world.
7) The Mid-day Meal scheme has been a significant incentive for the poor to
send their little ones to school, thus establishing the vital link between
healthy bodies and healthy minds.
8 ) The goal of universalisation of elementary education has to be a prerequisite for the evolution and development of our country.
9) We should not be hopelessly addicted to an erroneous belief that
corruption in India is caused by the crookedness of Indians.
10) Red tape leads to corruption and distorts peoples character.
11) Inequitable distribution of all kinds of resources is certainly one of the
strongest and most sinister sources of conflict.
12) Extensive disarmament is the only insurance for our future; imagine the
amount of resources that can be released and redeployed.

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