The use of connectors in logical interpretation of a text

Many of you have heard your teachers talk about Logical Connectors. For sure, your teachers have emphasized on the importance of these phrases and words, but there still seems to be a lot of questions regarding their usage. Well, in order to familiarize you more with their usage, I have prepared this short post. Let’s have an example first:

Ali didn’t study well. Ali failed the test.

Question: Based on the sentences, is this argument True, False, or Not Given?

Ali couldn’t pass the test because he hadn’t studied well.

Easy, right? The answer is True for sure. Ali didn’t study, and he failed the test. That’s the usual case for everybody who doesn’t study well… But stop at this point! YOU ARE WRONG! The answer is: Not Given. Where in the sentences there is the relation between Ali’s not studying, and his not passing the test?

That’s exactly why logical connectors are used in a text. If there’s no such thing, there’s no logical relation between the two sentences, and you cannot understand if Ali’s failure was the result of his not studying. Can you get what I mean?

Read this other example:

I was really hungry.

I didn’t eat lunch.

What’s happening here? Which sentence should be written first? Well, nobody can tell for sure. It depends on the idea the writer wants to express. Look here:

I didn’t eat lunch. As a result, I was really hungry.

I was really hungry. However, I didn’t eat lunch.

Can you get what I’m talking about? That’s the very reason why we, as your teachers, emphasize on the importance of logical connectors. They help you a lot in understanding the organization of sentences in a reading passage, and they, therefore, help you in answering the questions precisely and correctly. I hope this has been of help in familiarizing you with the use of connectors in a reading passage. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask in the comments section.

Thank you for reading.