#6 - The decisions that one makes can profoundly affect

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[ChicaRosa]

Why is D wrong while B is correct?

I thought it was D because of the second sentence in the stimulus but is it wrong because the stimulus mentions that everyone cherishes their close personal relationships while the principle doesn't mention that?

Thanks!

[Adam Tyson]

Bouncing this one back to you, Chica. Why did you think that D was a better answer than B? What was your prephrase? In this question you are supposed to be looking for a principle (a rule or guideline) that strengthens the conclusion of the argument. As with any strengthen question, you need to know what the conclusion is in order to help make it better. So, what did you see as being the conclusion of the argument?

Tell us more about your process and your analysis of this argument, and then we can talk some more about it.

[ChicaRosa]

Bouncing this one back to you, Chica. Why did you think that D was a better answer than B? What was your prephrase? In this question you are supposed to be looking for a principle (a rule or guideline) that strengthens the conclusion of the argument. As with any strengthen question, you need to know what the conclusion is in order to help make it better. So, what did you see as being the conclusion of the argument?

Tell us more about your process and your analysis of this argument, and then we can talk some more about it.

Hi Adam!

I thought the conclusion was, "one shouldn't regret the missed opportunities of youth because if they would've pursued those opportunities then they wouldn't have those close personal relationships that they have in the present."

I thought answer choice D's wording reflected what the conclusion was about but now that I'm looking at it I think it's wrong because nowhere in the stimulus does it mention that those who regret those missed opportunities should cherish their personal relationships more deeply because the last sentence of the stimulus says that," everyone deeply cherishes their close relationships."

The conclusion states that those missed opportunities led to something that one cherishes which I can now see why B is correct.

Thanks a lot for your questions!

[Adam Tyson]

Good job pushing through that one! One word of caution, though and that is that your idea of the conclusion is too broad here. The first part of that sentence, "one shouldn't regret the missed opportunities of youth", is the conclusion, but the rest of it is introduced by a premise indicator, "because". That means all the rest of that sentence is a premise and is not part of the conclusion.

So, strengthen "you shouldn't regret missed opportunities". The principle may still tie back to the premises, but it's the conclusion you need to focus on making better.

Nice work, keep it up!

[itstanaya]

I chose B because it was a more general answer, but i was just wondering why A is wrong specifically. Is it because it's drawing too broad of a conclusion (one should not have regrets) from a limited example/consequence (# of personal relationships)?

[Jeremy Press]

Hi itstanaya,

What you describe wouldn't necessarily be a problem on a Strengthen-Principle question. We're not really looking for "errors" in the principles. After all, the question stem asks us to take the principles at face value (Which one, "if valid"...). Here, we just need a principle that could "cover" (speak to) the facts of the premise(s) and the recommendation the author desires in the conclusion.

The problem with answer choice A is that it doesn't actually "cover," or speak to, the facts in the premises, because the answer refers to a comparison, "greater number of close personal relationships," whereas the premise in the stimulus is speaking in absolute terms about potentially not having "some" of the close personal relationships someone has. In other words, the author of the stimulus is concerned with those particular relationships (having some particular friend that you wouldn't have had otherwise) and not with the relative quantity of those relationships (having "more" of them than you would have had otherwise). So, answer choice A doesn't "cover" the facts of the premises and cannot help the author reach the conclusion they want to reach.

I hope this helps!

[teddykim100]

Hello,

Am I wrong in saying that B's "if" is not actually triggered in the stimulus?

B: "If the decision led to something you cherished"

However, the stimulus only tells us what happens when we make a decision to seize opportunities. The consequences of seizing opportunities, is loss of personal relationships (things we cherish)


What happens when we make a decision that leads to a loss, doesn't really tell us about what happens when we make a decision that led us to something we cherished (like a Illegal Negation basically). Therefore, B's "if" condition was never really described nor mentioned explicitly in the stimulus.

Is this because this is a Justify question, that we don't need to follow the conditional logic precisely?

[Luke Haqq]

Hi teddykim100!

Am I wrong in saying that B's "if" is not actually triggered in the stimulus?

Is this because this is a Justify question, that we don't need to follow the conditional logic precisely?

I'm not sure I understand the question about the "if" in (B) being triggered in the stimulus, but I can reiterate why that answer choice is correct. Since this is a justify question, we need something that is sufficient to allow the conclusion to be drawn. Here, the conclusion is that "one should not regret the missed opportunities of youth." Why does the author conclude this? The author explains that one should not regret this because those missed opportunities led to the relationships one now has, which the stimulus states that everyone cherishes.

There's a gap between the conclusion about regret and the following sentence about what everyone cherishes. Answer choice (B) bridges this gap. If one should not regret making a decision if it helped to bring about what one cherishes, then it follows that one should not regret the missed opportunities of youth, since these brought about what one cherishes. If (B) were added to the stimulus, it would thus be sufficient for the conclusion to follow from the premises.

[teddykim100]

Thanks for your answer Luke,

what I meant was something like this:

Conclusion: we should not regret missed opportunities

Evidence: for had one decided to take opportunities, one would not have some close personal relationships one currently has

We can diagram that conditional like this:

Sufficient: "If one took opportunities"

Necessary: "then would not have some close personal relationships"

To me, if we follow this conditional, it doesn't follow logically to say that therefore,

Sufficient (negated): "if one did NOT take those opportunities,

Necessary (negated): then it is guaranteed that one WOULD have those close personal relationships"

But seems like that's what B exactly said - ""if one did something that brought about something that one cherishes" AKA "if one didn't take opportunities"

This seems like an illegal negation of the logic to me. Which is why I then said B's "If something to helped to bring about something that one cherishes" sufficient condition was never established - because it was illegally negated (?). I'm wondering where I went wrong here!