Logical reasoning PrepTest 120 · Section 4 · Question 11

Incorrect. Very tempting! As we noted in our Anticipation, the Historian is leading to a conclusion that the Psychologists are wrong. However, the Psychologists make two claims—that the practice hurts self-esteem, and that kids with damaged self-esteem grow up to be adults that are less confident. The Historian's rebuttal statement doesn't let us say which of the two claims are wrong, just that at least one of them is, so this answer that states a specific one is wrong is, thus, incorrect. It's possible that the Psychologists are right about the consequences of loss of self-esteem and that it does lead to lower levels of confidence as an adult, but they're wrong that the traditional practice damaged the self-esteem of kids.

Incorrect. The stimulus talks only about average confidence levels of adults, so we can't draw any inferences about the outliers. It's possible that the adults raised under the traditional practice are all about equally confident, right around the average, and the adults not raised under the practice have a much wider range of confidence that still averages out to the same point.

Incorrect. The stimulus notes that "[a]nyone passing by" would conclude the kid had misbehaved, so this answer is contradicted by the stimulus.

Incorrect. First, the stimulus never officially establishes a relationship between childhood esteem and adult confidence—the Psychologists believe there is one, but the Historian rebuts their argument. Second, even the Psychologists never establish that the relationship is directly proportional, as this answer states.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Must Be True

Stimulus Summary:
Background - Traditional childrearing practice made bad kids sit on the front porch, and all people who saw them knew they were bad

Psychologists: This practice is bad because it hurts self-esteem, leading to less confidence as an adult

Contrary info/Rebuttal: Everyone agrees that adults raised under this practice and not raised under it are about as confident as each other

Answer Anticipation:
This is a weird Must Be True stimulus. The background information seems like a traditional stimulus for this question type, but then the Historian discusses a particular view before rebutting it with a separate piece of information. It's rare to get an argument in a Must Be True question, let alone two viewpoints and a rebuttal!

As such, it's hard to know what the correct answer is going to state. The Historian doesn't explicitly state a conclusion, so it's possible that the Historian's overall view that she's building to with her rebuttal will be the correct answer. If that's the direction the answer heads in, then we should anticipate that she's either concluding the Psychologists are wrong, or she's concluding that they haven't proven their point.

In looking at her rebuttal statement, she brings up adults that were raised under the traditional practice. The Psychologists' argument suggests that they'd be less confident as adults, but the Historian notes that no one disagrees that these adults raised under the practice aren't less confident, on average. So she is leading to the conclusion that, if her statement is true (which we qualify because it says "no one disagrees" with it, which doesn't mean it is true), then the Psychologists are wrong.

Answer Explanation:
This answer is a very roundabout and fancy way of calling the Psychologists wrong. The causality they put forward has two parts—first, the practice caused damage to self-esteem; second, the damage caused lower levels of confidence as an adult. However, the Historian showed that, on average, adults with or without the cause (traditional practice) had about the same level of the "effect" (adult confidence). As such, either the practice didn't damage self-esteem, or damage to self-esteem doesn't hurt adult confidence. This answer, rephrased, says, "If the Psychologists were right about their second claim, then they must be wrong about the first claim," which is supported by the Historian's rebuttal. Note the difference between this and (A), where that answer "picks" half of the argument to be wrong, as opposed to this answer which establishes that at least one of the two parts is wrong.

Key Takeaway:
When a Must Be True question has a structure that's building to a conclusion but it never states it, the correct answer is likely to be that conclusion. Here, since the Historian was rebutting the argument of the Psychologists, we were able to anticipate that the answer would highlight that she believed they were wrong.

From there, it became a matter of noting that the Psychologists made two claims, and saying that they were wrong meant saying that at least one of those two claims was wrong, not a specific one.