Logical reasoning PrepTest 112 · Section 3 · Question 18

Question prompt

It is said that Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: B

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Argument or Facts

Argument

Valid or Flawed

Flawed

Question Type

Strengthen with Necessary Premise Questions

Stimulus Summary

Common belief (CB): People should accept themselves for who they are
Author’s Opinion CB: If the goal is to have happy people, this is bad
Reasoning - ~Pursuing personal excellence/willing to change → ~Happy

Answer Anticipation

This argument has a few common patterns to it that we should explore to understand how it works.
First, there’s the rebuttal structure. A common belief is presented, and the author states her opinion of it. The author’s opinion of an opposing point is almost always the main point of the argument, and that’s backed up here by it being followed by a “for” statement, which introduces a premise that supports whatever precedes it. Since the conclusion here refers back to the common belief, we should rephrase it to say what it means:
If the goal is a happy society, then people shouldn’t simply accept themselves as they are
Second (and third!), as we see in our rephrasing of the conclusion, it’s conditional, and that condition is a goal - the conclusion is conditioned on having a goal of a happy populace.
So we have our conclusion reframed to reflect the content of it, and we know that the conclusion is conditioned on a goal. Let’s see how the premises support that.
The premise here is a principle/conditional itself - if people aren’t pursuing excellence and changing to reach it, then they can’t be happy. In other words, if they’re not willing to change, then they can’t reach the goal that the conclusion is conditioned on.
Since the premises establish a sufficient condition for failing to achieve the goal, it must be the other portion of the conclusion that is disconnected from the premises. That means we should look for an answer that connects that part of the conclusion to the premise:
People who simply accept themselves as they are don’t pursue excellence/aren’t willing to change

Answer choices

  1. A
    Those who are willing Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    The premise of the argument is those not willing to change won’t find happiness. This answer is a (weakened) negation of that, so it’s not necessary for the argument to hold.
  2. B
    People who are not Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B matches the stem
    This answer matches with our anticipation. The argument establishes that those who aren’t pursuing excellence can’t be happy, so they fail to meet the goal set out in the conclusion. However, the conclusion goes after a principle about accepting yourself, not refusing to change, assuming a connection between those two ideas. This answer connects them. If people who are not dissatisfied with themselves are at least as likely to pursue excellence, then there’s no reason to believe that the common recommendation to be satisfied with yourself would stop people from still pursuing excellence, thus destroying the argument. Note that this answer is weaker than our anticipation, which is fine in a Strengthen with Necessary Premise statement! Weaker versions of statements must be true for stronger versions to hold. Answers are problematic when they’re stronger.
  3. C
    Personal excellence cannot be Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Confidence is out of scope.
  4. D
    People are justified in Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    Being justified with feeling that you’re good enough is out of scope. In fact, the argument would prefer that people who are excellent still pursue it, as it’s the pursuit that’s established as being necessary for happiness - not being excellent!
  5. E
    Happiness is not genuine Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    There’s no discussion of pain in the stimulus - it’s possible the pursuit of excellence is difficult but not painful.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 15%
  2. B Credited 61%
  3. C 14%
  4. D 8%
  5. E 2%

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