Reasoning By Elimination for Dummies

Reasoning by elimination is a way of solving a problem or figuring out the right answer by eliminating the options that don't make sense. It's like playing a game of guess who, where you have a set of faces and you need to figure out which one is the correct face. Instead of trying to pick the right face at the beginning, you start by looking at each face and asking yourself, "Does this person have blonde hair?" If the answer is no, you can eliminate all the faces with blonde hair. Then you move on to the next question, "Does this person have glasses?" If the answer is no, you can eliminate all the faces wearing glasses. By repeating this process and asking different questions, you eventually narrow down your options until you find the correct answer.

In a similar way, reasoning by elimination helps us arrive at the answer when we have multiple options to choose from. Instead of directly selecting the correct answer, we go through each option and eliminate the ones that don't fit based on certain criteria or information. This way, we can systematically eliminate the wrong answers until we are left with the one that makes the most sense or is the most likely to be correct.

Let's take an example to understand it better. Imagine you are trying to solve a math problem and you have four answer choices. Instead of randomly guessing, you can use reasoning by elimination to eliminate the answers that can't be right. You can start by asking questions like, "Is this answer too big?" or "Is this answer a negative number?" If the answer is yes, you can eliminate any choices that don't match those criteria. By continuing to ask more questions and eliminating more options, you can narrow down the possibilities and increase your chances of finding the correct answer.

Reasoning by elimination can be a helpful problem-solving strategy in various situations, such as solving puzzles, making decisions, or even answering multiple-choice questions on a test. It helps us break down complex problems into smaller, more manageable parts, making it easier to find the solution or make a well-informed decision.

So, in a nutshell, reasoning by elimination is a way of solving problems or finding answers by carefully going through each option and eliminating those that don't fit based on certain criteria or information. It's like playing a game of guess who and systematically eliminating faces until you find the right one. It can be a useful tool for problem solving and decision making, helping us arrive at the correct answer or solution through a step-by-step process.