Verbal inference questions - GRE

[grad29]

I've been having some trouble figuring out how much one can "infer" from the passages. 

 

For instance, take this part of a passage:

 

"while the telomere seems on the surface to be nothing more than a useless afterthought of DNA, a closer look proves that it is not only important, but also crucial to the functioning of any organism" 

 

Can you infer from that excerpt "scientists once believed that telomeres served no useful purposes"?

 

Because telomeres appear on the surface to be a "useless afterthought of DNA" and it takes a "closer look" to prove that's not true, why can't it be inferred that scientists once thought that telemores didn't have any useful functions? Perhaps before they took a "closer look" they thought telemores had no practical application. Yet I was incorrect in selecting this choice. 

 

What are the best ways to approach these types of verbal questions? To what extent should my inferences be made? 

Edited July 24, 2015 by westy3789

[firewitch]

It's hard to tell without seeing all the choices presented.

[TakeruK]

What are the other choices? Remember that in these questions, you are not simply selecting a choice that is correct, but selecting the choice that is best supported by the text and best answers the question. It may be possible that most of the choices are correct statements, but only one choice is clearly the best answer. 

[GREMasterEMPOWERRichC]

Hi westy3789,

 

Inference questions can sometimes be based on a single word, a sentence, a couple of sentences or the entire passage. To properly deal with the example that you presented, we would need to see the ENTIRE prompt and the original question (along with the 5 answer choices). 

 

GRE Masters aren't born, they're made,

Rich