Fact, Inferences, Judgements

Fact Inference Judgement

Can be made after some
Can be made any time Can be made any time
observation
Stays within what can be Goes beyond what can Goes beyond what can be
observed be observed observed
Provides closest approach to Shows some degree of Shows a high degree of
certainty probability probability
Has some degree of Has a large degree of
Has no approximation
approximation approximation
Can be made in limited or Can be made in
 
finite number unlimited number
Talks about right and
Does not talk about right
  wrong, good and bad,
or wrong
approval/ disapproval

Words that are used in the comparative or the superlative degree often qualify statements as
Inferences. For example highest, taller, largest, heaviest etc can only be arrived at after
verifying data, hence the statements involved are inferences.

Statements that use a lot of adjectives and adverbs; words like 'should', 'must,' 'only' ,
'never', 'always', 'all' etc. have a tendency to be Judgements.

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)
 The rise of Indian currency will impact exporters adversely – FACT (rise of
currency will always impact exporters adversely – universal truth)
 Exporters will need to consider how to protect their operating margins-
INFERENCE (by uplinking)

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 fact…’curse on mankind’ is too abstract).

9)20% of the population live below poverty line (Fact).

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 don’t).
4)The legislature is advocating vigorously against intrusion of judiciary in parliamentary
affairs.
5)A football field is 100 yards long.

‘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 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.
 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.
(the green part is the fact and the brown part is the conclusion. Notice that without the
explanation given by the fact, you cannot convincingly prove the conclusion.)
2)The footprint warned Robinson Crusoe that there was someone else on the island.

‘INFERENCE’ STATEMENTS IN CAT 2006 PAPER:

(the facts are in green and the conclusions are in brown)
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.
 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 mother’s 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 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 world’s 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.
The goal of universalisation of elementary education has to be a pre-requisite 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 people’s 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.