Political debates and GRE/GMAT preparation go hand-in-hand

Yesterday, I had a chance to be part of a 'TV debate' as part of the audience. It was a Doordarshan program called Janvani. Eminent personalities and VIPs were invited.

The underlined part was not mentioned in their invitation letter - so we happily made our way to the program. The 'eminent personalities and VIPs' part also needs an explanation. There were 8 people on the dias - ALL Tamil policians.. and I could recognise only one of them. I had not a clue who the others were and why they were there. DMK, AIADMK, BJP, Congress, CPI, CPI(M), BSP and umm...  one more party. So, that's that.

Let me tell you why you should (NOT) be part of such debates if you are planning to write GMAT/GRE/CAT in the near future:

argumentum ad hominem:

In the GMAT, 'ad hominem' attacks tend to weaken an argument, hence considered as a fallacy of arguments. [ad hominem attacks a person's character and not his/her opinions]. All through out the TV debate, the members on the dias kept digging old stories - 'They are ones who put Vaiko in jail and now are talking about blah blah...'  ' You are the ones who give out free TVs' and many many more.

Use of articles:

A, an, the. There was a BSP chap who was perhaps the most correct English speaker but for his use of articles. Examples "The China is not a threat to India." ... ".. a Sri Lanka..." and so on...

Wrong choice of words:

One of the speakers seemed to use the wrong word from the P-list of Barrons.. While she meant, 'it is the prerogative of the public schools', she ended up saying 'it is the prority of the public schools'

This is ignoring the obvious and blatant violation of rules of grammar, including - Parallelism, Verb-tense matching, consistent use of pronouns etc.

Other commonly found GMAT-errors:

• Inability to differentiate between causaton and corelation. ["Terrorism increased after Congress came to power. Hence, Congress is soft on terror."]
• Shifting the burden of proof. [To imply that a position is true merely because no one else has disproved it]

A few other things I could note:

Congress chap: The budget allotment to primary education in 2003 was 8000 blah crores... but we increased to 10,000 blah crores in 2005. That is an achievement.

BJP: You have not accounted for inflation in the increase!

(If you don't get this one, I seriously advise you on taking the course HS 109: Principles of Economics.)

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The person second from left resembled our Chief Security Officer, who had fined me for 500 bucks for driving a bike inside the campus. So, I already had a bias against him. 

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The CPI fellow kept dozing off and would wake up suddenly and make out-of-the-blue statements like 'China is not at all affected by the US recession' and ' India started the process of liberalisation way before China (??!!!)' and go back to sleep.

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The CPI (M) fellow would just shout in the mike to make his point. His lungs may not serve him well if he continues the same, considering that age is not on his side.

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The BJP chap is not part of any alliance in the state - and hence not in the centrestage of TN politics but he would always catch attention by saying "The BJP would like to respond to that question.."  OR "BJP can do it better..."

In essence, Indian politics, in it's present form is no more than a self-fulfilling prophecy. They hardly seem to care for the voter and the politicians are way off understanding the pulse of the common man. 

BUT, that is not the point of the post. My sincere advice would be this: If you are planning to take the GRE/GMAT/CAT anytime soon.. please do watch all the political debates on national channels... they are perhaps the best example of what-not-to-do in your verbal section. Also, it is a quick revision of 'commonly found errors in [Insert your test name here]'

Do thank me if this post helps you ace the test. And yes, DO VOTE.