Logical reasoning PrepTest 147 · Section 1 · Question 20

Incorrect. While critical thinking is the only adequate protection against demagogues, and technology erodes this skill, there still might be a highly technological society with no demagogues. That society might be more at risk for demagoguery than other societies and yet still not have one, so this answer could be true.

Incorrect. Sure, this could be true. Demagogues attempt to do this, but others could, as well. There's no indication in the stimulus that only demagogues do this, or that everyone who does this is a demagogue.

Incorrect. It's possible that highly emotional people lack critical thinking skills and thus are more susceptible to demagoguery, specifically its exploitation of emotion.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Cannot Be True

Stimulus Summary:
Electronics cause uncritical thought
Protection against demagogues → Critical thinking
Demagogue—Someone who seeks to exploit people by appealing to emotion as if it were reality

Answer Anticipation:
Remember that Cannot Be True questions require us to find an answer that contradicts a statement made in or inference allowed by the stimulus. As such, weaker statements (say, what a demagogue does) are less likely to be relevant to the answer as they're harder to contradict without just repeating it with a "not" in it. On the other side, very strong statements—say, conditionals—are much easier to contradict.

Since we have a conditional in the stimulus, we should consider what it would mean to contradict it. Since conditional statements guarantee the necessary condition when you have the sufficient, contradicting it would mean finding a situation that establishes the sufficient condition without the necessary. Here, that would mean an answer that brings up something that provides adequate protection against demagogues other than critical thinking. Let's see if that's an answer choice.

Answer Explanation:
This doesn't match our anticipation, but it does deal with the issues in the conditional statement. There, we were told that critical thinking is "the only" adequate protection against demagogues. Thus, nothing else is adequate protection, and so the mere presence of an orderly system of government is not adequate protection. This answer contradicts the conditional statement in the stimulus, so it's the correct answer.

Key Takeaway:
Cannot Be True questions that have conditional statements will frequently have an answer that is correct because it contradicts that conditional statement without touching on any other statements in the stimulus. When you're in this question type and a conditional statement is provided, look for an answer that establishes a situation where the sufficient condition is present but the necessary condition isn't.

Incorrect. Media freedoms aren't mentioned at all in the stimulus, so almost anything could be true about them. Since it includes a concept that's out of scope, it almost certainly could be true and is thus incorrect in this question.