#16 - Essayist: Many people are hypocritical in that they

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True. The correct answer choice is (B)

The stimulus in this Must Be True question contains an interesting discussion about the effects of hypocrisy on people’s behavior and beliefs. The stimulus begins with a definition of sorts about the way in which many people are hypocritical, and then follows that up with an analysis of what happens both when hypocrisy is exposed and when it goes unnoticed/undiscovered. In both cases, exposure or otherwise, the results are said to be essentially the same: people are motivated to try to be better (to try to be good). And this consistent result is ultimately where the correct answer is drawn from.

When analyzing this stimulus (and the answer choice options that follow) is particularly important to be mindful of what can be called a false (or improper) comparison. The test makers frequently attempt to trap unsuspecting test takers by taking two different ideas or scenarios from a stimulus and then comparing them to one another in an improper, or overly presumptuous, way. In this case, when you see that hypocrisy can either be exposed or not, do not make the mistake of trying to infer that one way is somehow better/preferable, more powerful/significant, or more common than the other. These types of comparisons simply cannot be known solely from the information given, and if you see an answer choice that introduces this type of false comparison you can immediately eliminate it.

Answer choice (A): This is a very strongly worded answer choice that states that hypocrisy convinces people that no one is morally blameless (in other words, everyone has some moral flaws). This notion is never addressed in the stimulus and is therefore incorrect.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. As discussed previously, hypocrisy, whether it is exposed or not, ultimately results in people making efforts to be better/good (or, as worded here, to live by moral standards).

Answer choice (C): Hypocrisy is never said to yield negative results, so you cannot conclude that its existence encourages people to behave poorly or worse (to fall into a moral lapse).

Answer choice (D): This is a false comparison. We cannot infer from the stimulus that the hiding of hypocrisy is a better (or worse) way of motivating people that the exposing of hypocrisy. All we know is that both yield similar results.

Answer choice (E): This is another false comparison. Although not as obvious as answer choice (D), this answer attempts to compare the exposing of hypocrisy to literally everything else. We cannot conclude that there is no stronger motivator for people to try to be good than the exposing hypocrisy; all we know is that exposing hypocrisy is one motivator for people to try to be good. Its relative effectiveness cannot be determined.

[TargTru99^]

Greetings,

I have been taking Powerscore's LSAT Live online course, which said that in terms of language regarding quantity, "most" means more than 50% of what the word is referring to. In this particular question, I chose D because I thought that, whereas the exposure of hypocrisy motivates "others" to be better ("others" I thought meaning more than 1% of the people in the question), the concealing of hypocrisy would get more people to try to be good, thus leading me to think that the stimulus was saying that it is better to conceal hypocrisy than expose it. Can you tell me which error I am making?? I tended to think that "better" in the part saying of exposing hypocrisy was different than saying "trying to be good" in the part saying of concealing hypocrisy, and this notion of mine also led me to pick D. How are they the same? More importantly, how can I avoid making this mistake of overthinking again?

[Malila Robinson]

Hi TargTru99,
There is no comparison between exposing hypocrisy and hiding hypocrisy in this stimulus. Both tend to motivate others to try to be better. I know you asked for guidance as to how to avoid making the mistake of overthinking, but I'm not exactly sure, from your explanation what caused you to think that concealing hypocrisy would get more people to try to be good. It sounds like you may be comparing "most people" to "others", and you are assuming the former is definitely greater than the latter, but that is problematic. To clarify the issue let's look at your percentages. As you mentioned, "others" would probably match with a "some" which is 1% -100%, "most" is 51% to 100%, but both "most" and "some" have the possibility of meaning the same thing, so without further clarification we would not be able to say that one is automatically more than the other.

Let's try rewriting sentences 2 & 3 using "some" and "most":

Sentence 2: When hypocrisy is exposed...some hypocrites are embarrassed...this motivates some hypocrites and some others to...become better.
(So at least one hypocrite, and possibly all of them, plus at least one other person, and possibly all other people will try to become better with exposed hypocrisy)

Sentence 3: ...when hypocrisy exists without exposure...the belief that most people are good motivates most people to try to be good.
(So at least 51% of people, and possibly all people will believe that at least 51% of people, and possibly all people are good. So the at least 51% of people, and possibly all of the people who believe that will try to be good.)

The overlap between the percentages of people we are dealing with in sentences 1 & 2 makes it impossible to definitively say that one is greater than the other.

Since this is a Must Be True question we need to focus on the exact wording of the stimulus. If this were comparative we would need specific language that states that one of these is better than the other at causing people to try to be good. Without that we are left with the takeaway lesson that both exposing hypocrisy and hiding hypocrisy, without a judgment call as to which would be the better method to use, leads people to try to be good. That leads to B as the correct answer choice.

Hope that helps!
-Malila

[LSATscrub]

Hello.

I chose D incorrectly and understand why now it is incorrect from the above (most v. others). One of the things which drew me away from B was its equating “moral standards,” which were never discussed in the stimulus, with being good/better. Why can we assume that these two are the same when we weren’t told about the parameters of any standards? Is this one of those things where it is by common sense ‘plausible,’ and we should assume moral=good?

Thanks.

[Adam Tyson]

I think we can do more than just assume the connection between trying to be good or be better and living by moral standards, LSATscrub. The stimulus lays some groundwork for us in the first sentence when they talk about hypocrites pretending to be more "morally upright" than they actually are. In that way, the author is connecting "morally upright" with being a better person. From there, it's not much of a jump to say that trying to be a better person, or trying to be good, is the same as trying to live by some moral code or set of moral standards.

One thing that would really help here would be a solid prephrase, a prediction for what we should be looking for in the answers before we start examining answer choices. In this case, a good prephrase might be along the lines of "hypocrisy motivates good behavior, whether it is exposed or not." That's what the stimulus establishes - when it is exposed, people try to be better, and when it is not, people try to be good. Answer B looks pretty good in light of that prediction, wouldn't you say? Certainly better than the other answers, even we aren't too sure about "moral standards", and if it's better than the other answers then it is, by definition, the best answer, and that's what the instructions tell us to select. You don't have to love an answer, or even like it all that much, in order to know it's the one to pick!