I've come across a very challenging question, and I was wondering if the minds of TLS could help me out clarify a few things.
The conditionals aren't so hard to tackle, it's the subtle assumption plus the wording of the correct answer that makes it incredibly difficult. What are some tips to help elucidate and see the assumption and whittle down the confusion in interpreting the answer choice.
Thanks!
PREP TEST A S4. Q25 Forum
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Deardevil
- Posts: 496
- Joined: Sat Jun 04, 2016 11:00 pm
Re: PREP TEST A S4. Q25
If people's intentions CANNOT be MORE bad than good, negate the necessary condition,
translating the first sentence into "people's intentions are no more bad than good."
"Otherwise" just flips it back to the original, that intentions ARE more bad than good.
And if that were the case, we would stop trusting one another.
Thus, NO society CAN survive without mutual trust; simply put, ALL societies CANNOT survive.
(B) is all over the place; we're not talking about truth and falsity.
(C) says the argument calls into MOTIVES; that's not right.
(D) suggests, given a situation in which one pays a ransom or the abducted gets killed, the latter happens; that's not what the author's saying!
(E) mentions attributing a characteristic from one entity to another; clearly not correct.
Which leaves (A). "It fails to rule out the possibility that a true belief can have deleterious consequences."
What does the stimulus get at? If you DON'T believe this "true" belief, there will be a terrible aftermath.
To attack the argument, you would say something like, "WELL, maybe this true belief would also have a bad outcome!"
Seems hard at first, but the AC becomes obvious when you see that the other four are ridiculous.
translating the first sentence into "people's intentions are no more bad than good."
"Otherwise" just flips it back to the original, that intentions ARE more bad than good.
And if that were the case, we would stop trusting one another.
Thus, NO society CAN survive without mutual trust; simply put, ALL societies CANNOT survive.
(B) is all over the place; we're not talking about truth and falsity.
(C) says the argument calls into MOTIVES; that's not right.
(D) suggests, given a situation in which one pays a ransom or the abducted gets killed, the latter happens; that's not what the author's saying!
(E) mentions attributing a characteristic from one entity to another; clearly not correct.
Which leaves (A). "It fails to rule out the possibility that a true belief can have deleterious consequences."
What does the stimulus get at? If you DON'T believe this "true" belief, there will be a terrible aftermath.
To attack the argument, you would say something like, "WELL, maybe this true belief would also have a bad outcome!"
Seems hard at first, but the AC becomes obvious when you see that the other four are ridiculous.
