#9 - An easy willingness to tell funny stories or jokes

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

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

The author begins by saying that a willingness to tell funny stories about yourself shows that you are self-confident (we can use WTFS for “willing to tell funny stories about oneself” and SSC for “Supreme self-confidence”):


WTFS → SSC


The diagram of the second sentence is a tricky one: First, the “good natured acquiescence” refers to the idea that you are ok with hearing other people tell funny stories about you (we can call that WHFS, or “willing to hear funny stories about oneself.”)

Second, we already know the relationship given in the first sentence, and the second sentence states that the relationship in the first sentence is “even more revealing” than WHFS. In other words, WHFS → SSC is true, but WTFS → SSC is even more powerful. This is the tricky part, because the “even more revealing” phrase very cleverly suggests that the same relationship exists between WHFS and SSC as that between WTFS and SSC. This is something like saying that the surest mark is the telling of funny stories, but another sure mark is willingness to hear funny stories about yourself. Thus, the second sentence would be diagrammed as follows: WHFS → SSC

Since both diagrams above have the same necessary condition (SSC), they can be combined:

• WTFS
  
  Or → SSC
  
  WHFS

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice, as it supplies the valid contrapositive of the conditional “or” statement diagrammed above:

• WTFS
  
  SSC → and
  
  WHFS

Since it is confirmed by the information provided in the stimulus, it is confirmed as the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (B): The author does not mention a willingness to tell funny stories about others, so this choice fails the Fact Test and can be quickly eliminated.

Answer choice (C): The stimulus provides no information regarding the intent of the self-confident, so this choice cannot be confirmed by the author’s statements.

Answer choice (D): There is no reference to any particular preference between telling and hearing a funny story, so there is no way to confirm this choice based on the stimulus, and it cannot be the correct answer.

Answer choice (E): This answer choice deals with the intent of the story teller, whereas the author only discussed those who are the subject of funny stories. Based on the author’s statements there is no way to know whether telling funny stories about others conveys respect.

[mfrank]

In the lesson 1 LR homework question 16 (page 1-79), the answer is (A). While this seemed like the best answer to me, it also seemed too strong - the answer states that a "person who lacks self-confidence will enjoy neither telling nor hearing funny stories about himself or hearself," but the stimulus describes the willingness to tell and hear stories about oneself as "marks" of self-confidence, not absolute predictors. I would have expected the answer to say "will likely" rather than "will" - am I misunderstanding?



Thanks!

[BethRibet]

Good question, mfrank.

Note the word "surest" modifying the word "mark", which indicates a very high degree of certainty, or reliability. That is, if a person is willing to tell or hear funny stories or jokes about him or herself, we can be quite sure that he or she is supremely self-confident. Someone would only do this if they were self-confident. Therefore if a person is not self-confident, we can trust that they would not enjoy telling or hearing funny stories about himself or herself.

You're welcome!

Beth

[ellenb]

Dear Powerscore


I just want to make sure I have diagramed correcctly the statements and the answer:

First Statement:

TFSAO (Telling funny stories about oneself) or JAO (Jokes about Oneself) → SSF (supreme self-confidence)

Second Statement:

(I had difficulty with and I do not understand how they got the one in the answers/explanations)

Willingess to TFSAO (Telling funny stories about oneself) ---> MRTG (More revealing than Good-Matured Acquiscence)

how did the come up with: Good-natured acquiescence → self-confidence (seems like a MR)


Answer:

not SC(self-confidence)-->not TFS and not Hearing


(where did they get hearing stories?) should we still make it part of the answer

it just seems like if i had

B or C---> A

contrapositive:

not A--->not B an not C

however the answer brings another variable let's say H which stand for hearing

not A--->not B an not H


(thus is is still correct even though we lack C) can we still conclude the answer even though we have H a completely new variable?)

Thanks in advance, please take a look at the diagrams and please let me know why they diagramed the second statement the way they did and is the answer still ok if they bring another variable?


Regards,

Ellen

[ellenb]

I noticed that no one is answering this question, is it confusing? Should I restate it?

Please let me know I really want to make sure that my question gets answered.

Regards,

Ellen

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Ellen,

I think no one was able to get to this because we had a lot of questions posted on Thursday and Friday, and sometimes it then takes an extra day or two to get to all of them (especially because we had several instructors out of the office on Friday). We did at least respond to the other three questions you posted at roughly the same time And, if something was confusing, we would ask you about it instead of ignoring the question!

That said, let's look at this one for you, and I'll just explain it from the ground up for convenience. Your diagram of the first statement is correct, but instead of TFSAO, I'll use WTFS, which stands for "willing to tell funny stories about oneself":

WTFS SSC

In that sentence, the "surest mark" is connected to the sufficient condition (literally, seeing the "mark" tells you something, in the same way that when a sufficient condition occurs it tells you that the necessary condition must occur).

The diagram of the second sentence is a tricky one (as I think you suspected). there are two parts here worth discussion. First, the good-natured acquiescence in others poking fun at you basically means that you are ok with hearing other people tell funny stories about you. I tend to call this term WHFS, or "willing to hear funny stories about oneself."

Second, we already know the relationship given in the first sentence, and the second sentence states that the relationship in the first sentence is "even more revealing" than WHFS. In other words, WHFS SSC is true, but WTFS SSC is even more powerful. This is the tricky part, because the "even more revealing" phrase very cleverly suggests that the same relationship exists between WHFS and SSC as it does between WTFS and SSC. Kind of like saying that the surest mark is the telling of funny stories, but another sure mark is hearing funny stories. Thus, the second sentence creates this diagram:

WHFS SSC

Now, because those two diagrams have the same necessary condition (SSC), we can combine them:

WTFS
or SSC
WHFS


Answer choice (A) is then the contrapositive of this diagram, or:

WTFS
SSC +
WHFS

Since this is a Must Be True question, answer choice (A) is then correct. But, it's not an easy problem at all! The beauty is that it forces you to examine the language in play and combine different elements into a single relationship.

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[ellenb]

Dear Powerscore,
I seem to be very confused with this question, the answer that is on the explanations says because of the phrase "even more revealing" the first statement connects to the second (WHFS ->SSC) and (WTFS ->SSC) I am still confused as to why they connect this way?

Thanks

Ellen

[Jon Denning]

Hey Ellen - thanks for the question. I think the connection you're seeing there is the idea that, when it says a willingness to tell jokes about oneself "is even more revealing " of self-confidence than a good-natured willingness to let others tease you, it means that both the telling and the receiving of jokes about yourself indicate you have self-confidence. "Even more" just tells us that telling jokes is more indicative, but they both show that self-confidence exists. So they're connected by that idea.

So if both of those (telling jokes and taking jokes) prove self-confidence, then if someone has no self-confidence then he/she must not be willing to tell jokes or take jokes directed at him/her.

And that's answer choice A.

Hope that helps!

[ellenb]

thanks,

However, I think that is the problem that I do not see how that connection is being made, sorry. Could you maybe give an example which is similar to this?

(I just want to make sure that I get the logic behind it)

thanks

Ellen

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi Ellen,

Let's say I told you that a high LSAT score is even more revealing of your potential to excel in law school than is a high GPA. The phrase "even more" implies that each factor reveals your potential for academic excellence: the LSAT simply does a better job at it than the GPA.

So, if each of these factors is a mark of (i.e. is a sufficient condition for) academic excellence, it would be reasonable to conclude that without the potential for academic excellence, you will have neither a high LSAT score, nor a high GPA.

The same logic is inherent in the stimulus of Question 16: telling funny stories about yourself is a mark of (i.e. a sufficient condition for) self-confidence:

Tell funny stories about self Self-confidence

This is even more revealing than hearing funny stories about oneself. So, hearing funny stories about oneself is also revealing, just not as much as telling them:

Hear funny stories about self Self-confidence

Clearly, without self-confidence, you will enjoy neither telling nor hearing funny stories about yourself.

Does this clear things up?