# someone inside her home



## catmeow

A woman is at work, and she checks her home by webcam and sees that it is being robbed...  The following is an excerpt from a text that was part of a public exam."There was someone inside her home, someone she didn't know. Thomas picked up the phone and called 911.
'I'm watching my home on live monitor, and there is a black man in my house, and he is robbing it,' she told the dispatcher. "​You are to choose which statement, according to the text,  is false. I agree with the testmakers that the other statements are true. However,  I argue that all of the statements are true, there is no false statement. The statement  in question is:

  B) When Jeane Thomas saw a black man in her home, she immediately called the police.



In the case of  B, Jeanne saw  "... someone inside her home, someone she didn't know."  She calls 911 and decribes this unknown person.  "I'm watching my home on live monitor, and *there is a black man* in my house, and he is robbing it," Therefore the man she saw was black. The answer does not say that she called the police because he was black, only that "Jeane Thomas saw a black man in her home".

I have 2 days to protest.

LINK to the CNN story on which the test was based.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

I suppose that one could make the weak argument that she did not call the police but instead called 911, which may or may not be operated by the police in her town.


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## kalamazoo

I would say that she called the police when she saw a man that she didn't know inside her house, not when she saw a black man inside her house.


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## panjandrum

kalamazoo said:


> I would say that she called the police when she saw a man that she didn't know inside her house, not when she saw a black man inside her house.


Her report to the police mentioned a black man, so the man that she didn't know was black.

I was going to suggest that perhaps she saw the other man first, and he was white, but the text does not tell us that she saw two men, only one.

It looks to me like a poor question.


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## kalamazoo

It is a strange question. My point was that the reason for her call to the police was not that the man was black. You call the police when you see a stranger inside your house, regardless of his color. Actually, her call was because she saw a man robbing her house. So she called the police because she saw someone robbing her house, and she mentioned during the call that the man was black, but that wasn't the reason for her call.

Her name seems to be Jeanne Thomas.


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## mevolution

kalamazoo said:


> I would say that she called the police when she saw a man that she didn't know inside her house, not when she saw a black man inside her house.



I agree, it was the fact that she saw an "unknown" man in her house that prompted her to call the police. She later describes a "black man" in her house but, but since there were 2 men in the house, it was not necessarily him that she had seen first.


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## kalamazoo

I don't think there were two men. She only mentions one man.


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## boozer

Could it be because of "immediately"?  Yes, she saw someone robbing the house. Yes, she called the police while the robbery was *still *taking place. Yes, one would presume that that means "immediately". But is it actually said anywhere?

From what I see here, a "Thomas" is picking up the phone. I would immediately conclude Thomas must be a man. Then the answer says Jeane Thomas. Jeane! A woman?

It's probably one of those questions designed to drive you crazy.


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## kalamazoo

This is from a newspaper account of some kind, so it would be standard practice to first mention the full name (e.g. "Barack Obama said yesterday..) and the next time the person is mentioned, just use the last name ("Obama also said...").  So probably there is a preceding sentence that says "Jeanne Thomas, 42, of Great Falls, had an unusual experience yesterday."  The next time she is mentioned, it is as "Thomas".


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## johndot

I’m sure that *kalamazoo* is right in post #5 : that Thomas (!) phoned the police before she knew that the robber was black.
 
Sorry about the red herring earlier!


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## catmeow

"There was someone inside her home, someone she didn't know."
How could she say that she didn't know the man inside her house, if she couldn't see his face? She described the man to the police, "*there is a black man* in my house"

My point is, the statement doesn't say that she called the police *because* he was black, only that the man was black.

  B) When Jeane Thomas saw a black man in her home, she immediately called the police.


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## kalamazoo

In one very literal sense the statement is true because she did call the police at the time that she saw a black man in her house.  However, statements like this do  have the definite implication that the REASON for calling the police was that the man is black.  For example, we might read a sentence that said "When I found out my husband was cheating on me, I was very upset" or "When I won the  lottery, I was very happy."  Without any context to tell us something different, these sentences are construed as giving reasons, not just as showing that two completely unrelated things occurred at the same time.


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## mevolution

If there was only one person robbing the house, then it can be safely said that the "black" man and the "unknown" man are the same person.
However, assuming that enough of the story was available for the reader to determine that there were 2 people robbing the house,


> The following is an excerpt from a text that was part of a public exam


then it can't be said with all certainty that the "unknown" man Jean saw, prompting her to call the police (dispatcher), was the "black" man that she talks about with the dispatcher.


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## Cagey

This story is part of a longer news report.  The first sentence that does not specify the race of the intruder is the reporter's narrative.  Newspapers have a policy of not mentioning race unless it is relevant; race is not relevant to the fact that the man was a criminal, and is omitted.  The second quotes Jeanne Thomas, in her words, and she described the man as black.   

Now we move on to an attempt to read the minds of the test makers. 

As Panjandrum points out, it is a reasonable inference that the man she was reported as seeing was black.  In fact, I would not want to write for a reader who could not make an inference on that level.  If doing this is considered an error, I don't know what kind of reading ability the test is testing for.  

GWB's suggestion that the test makers wanted the reader to make a distinction between calling 911 and calling the police seems somewhat more plausible to me. GWB calls this a weak argument and I agree.  It is true that, at least where I have lived, 911 is the number you call for assistance in any kind of emergency, and not only the number for the police.  On the other hand, it is the number people usually dial to call the police; they are much less likely to call the police station.  If I shout out "Call the police!", I expect you to call 911.  If this is the reason that the statement is considered false, then they are testing for the ability to do a very literal reading that avoids making equivalences that are idiomatic in every day speech.

Added: I think it is necessary to leave open the possibility that the test makers made some kind of mistake.


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## catmeow

Could I argue that  in the United States the quickest method to communicate with the police in the case of an emergency is by using "911" and therefore would be considered an immediate call to the police?

Also that "When Jeane Thomas saw a black man in her home, ..." is a time clause 
First: JT saw a black man in her home
Then: "...she immediately called the police."

The statement is not indicating a reason for the call, only the sequence of events and the fact that the unknown man was black as indicated by her description to the police.


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## Loob

catmeow said:


> You are to choose which statement, according to the text, is false. I agree with the testmakers that the other statements are true. However, I argue that all of the statements are true, there is no false statement. The statement in question is:
> 
> B) When Jeane Thomas saw a black man in her home, she immediately called the police.


I would be interested to know what the other options were...


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## catmeow

You can read the entire text by clicking the  "LINK to the CNN story"  in my first post.
The options are:

 A) Jeanne Thomas had been working when she decided to check the security camera in her home.
  B) When Jeane Thomas saw a black man in her home, she immediately called the police.
  C) The police arrived shortly after they had been contacted.
D) Jeanne's description of the thieves' action was very through.
E) Jeanne's dogs didn't react against the burglers.

sorry, I must have been typing my reply at the same time you were posting. Please delete this post if you deem it inappropriate.


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## mevolution

A) Jeanne Thomas had been working when she decided to check the security camera in her home. _fact_


> Jeanne Thomas was sitting at her desk at work when she decided to check the security camera


  B) When Jeane Thomas saw a black man in her home, she immediately called the police. _assumption_


> There was someone inside her home, someone she didn't know. Thomas picked up the phone and called 911.


  C) The police arrived shortly after they had been contacted. _fact_


> A few minutes after Thomas called 911, the video shows police officers entering the home.


 D) Jeanne's description of the thieves' action was very through. _fact_



> Thomas stayed on the line, giving a play-by-play of what she was seeing.


 E) Jeanne's dogs didn't react against the burglers. _fact_



> "The cat is freaking out. *The dogs are hiding*."


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## kalamazoo

It seems to me that there are two different uses of "when" that are getting a little confused here somehow.

One sentence might be "When I saw him, I was already on my way to the store."  This just means that the two things are at the same time.
Another sentence might be "When I saw him, I was overjoyed."
This means that seeing him made you overjoyed.

I think catmeow is interpreting "when" in the first usage, but the test intended the second.  There may be some technical terms for all this.  From Googling, I think 'when' is a subordinating conjunction.


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## Wishfull

Hi.
The answer B) is wrong, simply because the woman's name is wrong, isn't it?


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## panjandrum

I think catmeow should quote this thread, in which several intelligent people, and panjandrum, are evidently having difficulty finding an answer to the question or justifying the supposedly correct answer.


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## catmeow

_Thank you everyone for your input_. Thank you very much.


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## Rational_gaze

catmeow said:


> You can read the entire text by clicking the  "LINK to the CNN story"  in my first post.



So the CNN story is exactly the text that was used? When you said 'based' on, I thought you meant that it has been re-written. 

The actual report contains the phrase "As the 911 dispatcher was calling police to the scene...."

Therefore, technically, Jeanne Thomas did not call the police - the 911 dispatcher did. The article considers the 911 dispatcher to not be part of 'the police'. 

"When Jeane Thomas saw a black man in her home, she immediately called the police." can be considered inaccurate, strictly speaking, when considering the wording of the article.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

If the dogs* "hid"*, they reacted _*to*_ the burglar, but did not react _*against*_ him. Thus, *E* is the most incorrect answer.


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## easychen

kalamazoo said:


> Another sentence might be "When I saw him, I was overjoyed."
> This means that seeing him made you overjoyed.


 My two cents:

If the sentence is revised like this:
_I was being overjoyed when I saw him._

Perhaps this one could indubitably mean the two unrelated things are at the same time?


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## JamesM

GreenWhiteBlue said:


> If the dogs* "hid"*, they reacted _*to*_ the burglar, but did not react _*against*_ him. Thus, *E* is the most incorrect answer.


 
I thought that at first, too, but E says this:

E) Jeanne's dogs didn't react against the burglers. _fact_


Therefore, E is correct if they reacted _to_ but not _against. _

This whole test question is unnecessarily convoluted, in my opinion.


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## Rational_gaze

JamesM said:


> This whole test question is unnecessarily convoluted, in my opinion.



It seems that way, but if you imagine that the person writing the test has a good grasp of English, but does not know much about day-to-day life in the USA, then possibly not. 

The only mention of in the text of someone 'calling police' is when the dispatch operator does so. 

That idea that 'calling 911 equals calling the police' is only because people are familiar with how things work in the USA. Someone unfamiliar with that is given no reason to believe so.


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## kalamazoo

And burglar is misspelled in E, so maybe E is the one that's wrong.

This is a strange test.

I think if this were the SATs and your admission to Harvard depended on your score, you could argue that the question was wrong.

However, in the context, I think the best bet is to say that it's not the case that she dialed the police when she saw a black man in her house, because actually she dialed the police when she saw someone, who happened to be black, robbing her house.


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## Yameso

I think the sentence is wrong, because we can't tell whether she called the police "immediately."

In exams, you are not supposed to regard any statement as correct unless there's solid evidence in the text to support it.


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## kalamazoo

You can pretty much tell from the text that she phoned right away and didn't wait around. She's sitting at her desk, turns on the webcam, sees the burglars and picks up the phone.  So she did call immediately.


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## Rational_gaze

"When Thomas decided to pull up the feed of her house Wednesday morning, she couldn't believe what she saw. There was someone inside her home, someone she didn't know. Thomas picked up the phone and called 911."

That, to me, implies _very_ strongly that she called 'immediately'. It doesn't say that she watched for a while before calling; she saw someone, and picked up the phone. 

Also, to those saying about minor errors in the options - the question is about which statement is _false_, not which statement contains a grammar or spelling error.


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## Yameso

Now I feel persuaded that it's not the word "immediately" that makes the statement wrong. 
But then I don't see anything wrong with it ... , although it's a bit strange to me that they say "black man" instead of "stranger" in the "when" clause. 
It might be possible to argue that she might have noticed the stranger was black during the call and thus that the statement is wrong, but I know this just sounds like nitpicking...


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## kalamazoo

I think the question resolves to the issue of what is the meaning of the word "when."  This may seem strange, because it seems like we all know what it means.  "When are you leaving?" can only mean at what time (day, hour, year) are you leaving. But "when" is this sentence is not a question, but rather a subordinating conjunction, and it actually has a variety of meanings.


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## Rational_gaze

I really think that people are being misled because they can't get the idea that 'If Americans want the police, they call 911' out of their heads. It's possible that the author of the test wasn't influenced by such a thought. 

Perhaps it would help to replace '911', and the dispatcher who answered, with 'a guy with lots of connections', and replace 'police' with 'the A-Team'. Then you have:

"Thomas picked up the phone and called a guy with lots of connections." 
(Thomas describes the situation, and the guy with lots of connections asks Thomas where she is. She replies.)
"As the guy with lots of connections was calling The A-Team to the scene, Thomas stayed on the line..."

True or False? - "When Jeane Thomas saw a black man in her home, she immediately called the A-team."


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## JamesM

Rational_gaze said:


> I really think that people are being misled because they can't get the idea that 'If Americans want the police, they call 911' out of their heads. It's possible that the author of the test wasn't influenced by such a thought.


 
I can see that as a possibility, but if someone called '999' (or '112 ?) in England because he saw someone in his house and wanted the police, would you say he _hadn't _called the police?

I would say he called the police using the number he was given for contacting the police.


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## Rational_gaze

JamesM said:


> I can see that as a possibility, but if someone called '999' (or '112') in England because he saw someone in his house and wanted the police, would you say he _hadn't _called the police?



*I* certainly would not, but if I told someone who had little idea of what 999 means that the 999 operator then called the police, would I expect them to say that I called the police, or that the 999 operator did?


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## JamesM

Rational_gaze said:


> *I* certainly would not, but if I told someone who had little idea of what 999 means that the 999 operator then called the police, would I expect them to say that I called the police, or that the 999 operator did?


 
As I said, I can see it as a possibility. In that case, though, I wouldn't write test questions based on a foreign culture.

A 9-1-1 dispatcher performs the same function an emergency dispatcher used to in police departments before there was such a thing as centralized emergency services dispatchers. The 9-1-1 operator doesn't "call the police"; he dispatches police officers directly from his console.


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## mevolution

I think the basis for determining whether the phrase is true or false is ambiguity. In the case where Jeanne dialled 911 it was her sole intention to contact the police. In which case, in my opinion, it is perfectly acceptable to interpret Jeanne's action in dialling 911 as "calling the police".


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## Loob

I agree. I think it's a poorly-constructed exercise


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## kalamazoo

Even if you don't know what "911" is, if she called a "dispatcher" who "summoned the police" and the police entered her house just a few minutes later, isn't it kind of obvious that she "called the police" for any practical purpose.   If you phone for a taxi and talk to a dispatcher, does that mean you didn't "call a cab" even though one shows up at your door a few minutes later?

I still put my money on the interpretation of "when" (look it up, it has more meanings than we realize).  But what kind of test is this anyway?


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## easychen

I concur with the testmaker; B is false.
To me, this is not so much of a language question, but more of an issue on human's understanding which is shared by all the peoples on this planet.
Looking at B, one of any peoples would indubitably infer that "Thomas calling the police" has something to do with "black." It follows that if that someone was not a black man, Thomas perhaps wouldn't immediately call the police. Obviously, this is not true.
Actually, what is true can be found in the second paragraph of the story:
_when she saw *someone she didn't know* in her home, Thomas immediately called the police (or 911)._

And as a play-by-play of what she was seeing, Thomas saying "there is a black man in my home" is perfectly true and objective. But note that she didn't say to the dispatcher "come get him, he is a black!"


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## JamesM

This is what Kalamazoo proposed back in post #3.  I think it's the best explanation so far.


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## winklepicker

> When Jeane Thomas saw a black man in her home, she immediately called the police.


Nonetheless, you should certainly protest, on this basis:

She saw a man in the house.
She phoned the police.
She told them there was a black man in the house.

It follows that before she phoned she had already identified the colour of the man - she didn't just notice it as she was talking.

The colour of the man may be (is!) irrelevant, but nonetheless she mentioned it in her call to the police. That is not your problem, nor the examiners'.

She could have said _"there is an unidentified man in my house, and he is robbing it"_ or _"there is an evil man in my house, and he is robbing it"_, but she didn't. She said _black_.

There is nothing to suggest that she had NOT realised he was black before she phoned the police. I think you have a good case.


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## johndot

The logic is flawed above; this is how it really happened:
 
1. JT saw a stranger in her house.
2. JT phoned the police.
3. As JT opened her mouth to speak...
4. ... the intruder turned to face the hidden camera,
5. and JT said “There’s a black man....”
 
This scenario is no more, and probably less outrageous than any previous crime-scene detective work.


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## Cagey

I agree with winklepicker.  

If the test makers think this is a mistake, it is because they don't understand that newpaper policy (in the US at least) is not to mention the race of a person when it  is irrelevant, as I said before (post #16). 

On the other hand, if a newspaper quotes someone who does mention race, they include that in the quotation.  If a person is describing someone to the police, it is very likely that they will mention his race, as they see it. 

The fact that it is not mentioned earlier does not mean she didn't seen it.


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## kalamazoo

The point is not whether or not JT knew the man was black. She did know. The point is that her REASON for calling the police was not that she saw a black man in her house, but rather that she called the police because she saw a stranger robbing her house.  The stranger happened to be black and she happened to mention the fact, but it wasn't the cause of her phone call.


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## johndot

kalamazoo said:


> The point is not whether or not JT knew the man was black. She did know. The point is that her REASON for calling the police was not that she saw a black man in her house, but rather that she called the police because she saw a stranger robbing her house.  The stranger happened to be black and she happened to mention the fact, but it wasn't the cause of her phone call.


 Exactly. Why is everyone trying to fill an empty space with a difficulty?


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## winklepicker

Because there is no mention of causality. It wasn't the blackness of the man that made her call the police - how could it be? She would still have called them if he had been orange - because he was a burglar. The colour is incidental.

I repeat:

She saw a man in the house.
She phoned the police.
She told them there was a black man in the house.

Ergo: as soon as she saw the man (who happened to be black) she called the police.


EDIT: Had there been TWO men in the house (one black, one orange maybe?!) and she only called the police after she saw the black one then things would be different.

But no. One man. In the house. Black. Seems simple to me.


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## Rational_gaze

kalamazoo said:


> Even if you don't know what "911" is, if she called a "dispatcher" who "summoned the police" and the police entered her house just a few minutes later, isn't it kind of obvious that she "called the police" for any practical purpose.   If you phone for a taxi and talk to a dispatcher, does that mean you didn't "call a cab" even though one shows up at your door a few minutes later?



I'm not for a second arguing that the sentence is _actually_ false for this reason; I'm just saying that someone who read the text very literally could perceive it that way. The taxi analogy isn't flawless, as the only reason to telephone for a taxi is to arrange a taxi, but if you call an emergency number, you might require an ambulance or the fire service instead of the police. 

Perhaps it is a bit of a stretch, but to me it doesn't seem any more tenuous than anything else that has been suggested.


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## johndot

Rational_gaze said:


> Perhaps it is a bit of a stretch, but to me it doesn't seem any more tenuous than anything else that has been suggested.


 Yes, but in ‘tests’ (or parlour games) like this  it is supposed to be possible to deduce the correct answer _specifically_ from the information provided. It is not only unnecessary but unnecessarily confusing to ‘invent’ info.


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## Rational_gaze

johndot said:


> Yes, but in ‘tests’ (or parlour games) like this  it is supposed to be possible to deduce the correct answer _specifically_ from the information provided. It is not only unnecessary but unnecessarily confusing to ‘invent’ info.



Okay, now I'm really confused.  

I was actually thinking of making that point to _support_ my argument.

"As the 911 dispatcher was calling police..." is in the information provided. The 'invented' information is that people see calling 911 and calling the police as the same thing - the text does not contain that information.  

...or did I totally misunderstand?


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## kalamazoo

The dispatcher is not "calling police," she is "calling police to the scene" which is different.  She is a dispatcher, after all.  In the US, this is how you call the police in an emergency - you dial 911. I regard these as completely synonymous for this purpose.

One of the dictionary definitons of "when" is "As soon as" (when "when" is used as a conjunction, as it is here).

Suppose the sentence said "As soon as she saw a black man in her home, she immediately called the police."  Would you still claim that there was no cause and effect relationship implied here, but only two unrelated events (1) She called the police and (2) she saw a black man in her home?  Don't you think the "immediately" has some sense of being a response to the "when" clause?


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## johndot

Rational_gaze said:


> Okay, now I'm really confused.
> 
> I was actually thinking of making that point to _support_ my argument.
> 
> "As the 911 dispatcher was calling police..." is in the information provided. The 'invented' information is that people see calling 911 and calling the police as the same thing - the text does not contain that information.
> 
> ...or did I totally misunderstand?


 I was simply stressing that guessing and dreaming up wonderful tangents isn’t necessary—all the facts are there, and the correct conclusion has been arrived at several times, only for others to pretend that it can’t be right because of an _assumed_ nuance _which wasn’t in the original data._
 
The most glaring example, in my opinion, of a false assumption is this one:
 
The false statement that we have to denounce is: “JT phoned the police as soon as she saw a black man...” but that doesn’t agree with the information given: we are only told that “she saw a _strange_ man and called...”
 
But how many have said, as winklepicker in post #43, “It follows that before she phoned she had already identified the colour of the man - she didn't just notice it as she was talking.” But that is total presumption, and is not in the original data.
 
That, as I see it, is the very simple answer. Why look for something that isn’t there—much less lost?


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## Rational_gaze

Okay, thanks Johndot, I understand now. 

To me it seems strongly inferred that the primary reason she could identify the man as a stranger was because he was black - so strongly that it would seem ridiculous to imagine that she did not notice until after she picked up the phone. 

If, for example, a member of her family was black, then I don't think she would have said "...there is a black man in my house..."

I certainly wouldn't describe it as 'total presumption'. One has to presume something rather odd in order to declare the statement false. 

As someone else said, the journalist couldn't very well have started off with 'black man' rather than 'someone she didn't know', like it's illegal for a black person to be in someone's house. 

But alright, I guess this has a good chance of being the 'correct' answer.


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## mevolution

> Originally Posted by *johndot
> *The false statement that we have to denounce is: “JT phoned the police as soon as she saw a black man...” but that doesn’t agree with the information given: we are only told that “she saw a _strange_ man and called...”


 (no smiley for "Hitting the nail on the head")


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## easychen

(1) She saw a black man in her home.  --* True*

(2) She immediately called the police (or 911).  -- *True*

(3) A combination of (1) and (2).  -- *Not True*

Logically incorrect? Maybe yes. But, above all, it's human, and that's the point!


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