#10 - Most people are indignant at the suggestion that they

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Main Point. The correct answer choice is (E)

The stimulus begins by proposing that most people are angered at the suggestion that they do not well know their real wants, which rhetorically indicates that the conclusion of the argument is that most people do not know their real wants. The argument proceeds to assert that such self-knowledge requires a degree of effort that most people choose to avoid by accepting others' judgments about what people should want, affirming that the conclusion is that most people do not know their real wants.

You are asked to identify the main point of the argument.

Answer choice (A): The fact that acquiring self-knowledge can be risky is a premise, not the conclusion, so this choice is wrong.

Answer choice (B): It may be true, given the stimulus, that people do not find self-knowledge as desirable as it is usually thought to be; however, the ultimate conclusion needs to be that people do not have self-knowledge, and this incorrect choice does not reach that ultimate point.

Answer choice (C): The argument in no way asserts that people cannot find and reflect their real wants, only that they generally do not do so because it is an inconvenience. This choice is wrong.

Answer choice (D): The fact that people avoid difficult decisions is probably an implicit premise of the argument, but it is not the main point, so this choice is wrong.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice. The conclusion that most people are not good authorities on what they really want is watered down in this choice to the idea that people are not necessarily expert on their real wants. That actually makes the response better because the rhetorical reading of the stimulus utilized a polar rather than a logical negation, but the correct choices on the LSAT follow more logically than rhetorically.

[dandelionsroar]

Hi, for this question I understand why E is right but how is C not supported by the stimulus? If people avoid the effort of finding out what they really want because of the labourous task of acquiring that knowledge and instead unconsciously adopt society's wants then does it not follow that people can't really know what they should want in the first place? Since they should want to undergo the risky work of finding out their wants but then don't.

Thanks for your help!

[Malila Robinson]

Hi dandelionsroar,
The wording in your reasoning is a bit off, and that might be what is confusing you. Answer C does not say that people cannot know what they should want, instead it says that people cannot want things that they should want. And based upon the info in the stimulus we have no idea whether people are unable to want things that they should want.
Hope that helps!
-Malila

[sesejd]

Hi, I had a really hard time identifying the conclusion in this one. I chose the right answer using the therefore test, but could you help me breakdown the stimulus and how we can have more confidence in identifying this conclusion.
Thank You

[Amber Thomas]

Hi Sesejd!

Lets break the stimulus down into individual, paraphrased sentences:

1) Most people disagree that they are not reliable authorities about their real wants
2) However, self knowledge is not the easiest knowledge to acquire
3) Acquiring self knowledge requires hard and risk work
4) To avoid this work, people convince themselves they want what society says they should want

Starting with sentence one, we learn that most people are indignant or upset at the suggestion that they do not know their real wants. The following sentences (two through four) all provide justifications and reasons as to why people do NOT, in reality, know their own wants. We can infer from sentence one, and the following context/reasoning, that this stimulus is arguing that most people do not, in fact, know their own wants, in spite of the fact that they may reject this conclusion.

As you mentioned, the "therefore" test can be very helpful in situations like these! If we take our additional information/justifications and re-order the stimulus, we get something like this: "Knowledge about one's own wants is difficult to acquire, and often requires hard work. To avoid this effort, most people will unconsciously convince themselves that they want what society says they should want. Therefore, most people are not reliable authorities about their real wants."

I hope this helps!