#14 - Novelists cannot become great as long

[bk1111]

Hi -

Sorry in advance for all these questions! Can someone explain why E is incorrect? I initially chose D, but upon revisiting the answer choices, changed my answer to E.

Thank you!

[Adam Tyson]

No worries, bk, we're here to help!

The assumption here needs to close the logical gap between being a great novelist and getting that "intuitive grasp" the author speaks about. If he's going to argue that a novelist cannot be great if he doesn't get that intuitive grasp, then he must be assuming that the grasp is necessary, indispensable, for that greatness. That's where answer D comes in; it makes that grasp necessary in a conditional relationship in which being a great novelist is sufficient.

The problem with answer E is that it makes no such connection. There is no mention of greatness or of novelists. Without that link, this answer does nothing for us and isn't required by the argument.

Answer E is also something of a shell game, mixing up aspects of the stimulus in ways that they weren't originally expressed. "Observing and analyzing life" isn't quite what the stimulus is talking about, is it?

Look for the links that fill the logical gaps. This approach works well with assumption, justify, and strengthen questions frequently, and you'll be stepping up your gsme by spotting them and giving them your attention and consideration.

Keep at it!

[PresidentLSAT]

Hello Adam,

could you kindly spot why my reasoning for ruling out E?

Per the argument, the requirement for being a great novelist is an intuitive grasp of emotions of everyday life. There could be multiple ways of obtaining it but the author limits us to only one. I ruled out E because knowing about this required experience is contextually different from a grasp that doesn't require knowledge. This grasp is intuitive, whereas you can acquire the knowledge by experiment.

This section shook up my average lol

[Adam Tyson]

I think your reasoning for eliminating answer E makes some sense, President, but it overlooks a crucial aspect that kills it completely. This is an argument about being a great novelist, and the requirements for that greatness include some intuition. Answer E fails to address either "greatness" or "intuition"! It doesn't matter how one might acquire knowledge of those emotions; to be a great novelist you have to have an intuitive grasp, which is different from mere knowledge.

In Assumption questions, look for gaps between the issues raised in the premises and those discussed in the conclusion, and select an answer that connects those things to each other!

[jackielsat]

When I did this question, I diagrammed it as:


great novelists--> remain in academia

intuitive grasp--> immersion in life PRECLUDED by academia

So I predicted the assumption is that great novelists can't have intuitive grasp because intuitive grasp REQUIRES immersion but academia doesn't allow it, and novelists are required to remain in academia. Could you please help me understand where Im going wrong?

I chose E because it essentially states that there's no other way of gaining the intuitive grasp

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Jackie,

The first conditional you diagrammed is not correct. It's not saying that great novelists must remain in academia. It's saying that novelists in academia cannot be great.

Academia great novelist
or
Great novelist academia

Intuitive grasp of emotions of everyday life academia

We are looking for the assumption required by the argument, so we need to connect the intuitive grasp of emotions in the premise to the great novelist in the conclusion. This is what we see in answer choice (D). We would diagram answer choice (D) like so:

Great novelist intuitive grasp of emotions of everyday life

Answer choice (E) is not required for the argument. It talks about knowledge of the emotions of everyday life, which may be different from an intuitive grasp of those emotions. Additionally, the answer choice mixes up general analysis and observation skills with observing and analyzing life specifically.

Hope that helps!

[Roadto170]

Although I got this question correct, it took me almost 2 minutes to complete... and I would rather like to avoid spending significant time to get the question correct (although I am happy that I did).

Any thoughts on how to speed up assumption questions, in general, without losing accuracy. I understand why D is correct and the assumption negation technique worked masterfully... it just took a long time to get through all five choices.

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Roadto170,

First, here's a general comment about timing. While it is always a good idea to figure out ways to increase speed and efficiency (without losing understanding and accuracy), it's also important to understand that some questions may take 2 minutes or even longer for many test takers. Since you have 35 minutes to finish about 25-26 questions, that breaks down to about 1 minute 25 seconds per question. However, that is just an average, some (easier and/or shorter) questions may be able to be finished in a minute, some (harder and/or longer) questions may take 2 minutes.

That being said, skilled test takers can solve this question in under 2 minutes with the proper approach, as this question isn't especially long or difficult.

Most of the work to answering this question (like so many questions) is actually done before you even read the question or the answer choices. It is critical that you correctly analyze the stimulus to determine:

1. Does the stimulus contains an argument?
2. If so, what is the conclusion?
3. Does the conclusion contain any "new" information that was not discussed in the premises?

1. In this problem, the stimulus does contain an argument.
2. The conclusion is the first sentence.
3. The conclusion contains the idea of "great novelist," which is "new" information not discussed anywhere else in the argument. Because this concept was not discussed, there is a logical gap between the premises and the conclusion.

Understanding the above is basically everything that you need to know to answer this question. If the question turns out to be an Assumption question (which it does), then you'll be looking for a Supporter Assumption that links the new information in the conclusion (great novelist) back to the premise (specifically the part about intuitive grasp of emotions of everyday life).

How do we know that this is the part to connect to great novelist? Because the conclusion is that novelists cannot be great as long as they are in academia and the premise states that an intuitive grasp of emotions of everyday life cannot be obtained in academia, so if this intuitive grasp is necessary to be a great novelist and they can't get this necessary thing in academia, then they can't be a great novelist in academia.

In other words, ideally you should have this statement as your prephrase before even looking at the answers and then it is simply a matter of finding the answer that matches your prephrase. If you read the premises, then add Answer D, and then read the conclusion, the argument makes sense. In this way Supporter Assumptions can be similar to Justifying and Strengthen questions in that they close the gap in the argument.

Of course, you could use the Assumption Negation Technique on Answer D just to double check your answer, but it probably wouldn't be necessary in this case as the assumption here is fairly straightforward and fills in the missing piece of the argument. You shouldn't be using the Assumption Negation Technique on all five answers because that can be quite time consuming, only to double check an answer or to test any contenders (hopefully just 1 or 2).

[Mmjd12]

I got this correct, I was between (C) and (D) I want to make sure I didn't get it correct for the wrong reason:

I was looking for a link between being a great novelist and a grasp the emotions of everyday life. So I ruled out everything except for (C) and (D).

(C) does talks about emotions, but also includes impartiality, which the author already concedes is a benefit of acedemia. It also talks about "interspering expeience of life" the author doesn't mention these skills in any porportion to one another. I know an assumption can sometimes include extranous info along with the assumption but in this case the extranous info was already aknowledged. That's the main reason I ruled it out.

(D) bridges the gap more directly: Great intuitive grasp of the emotions of everyday life

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Mmjd,

You are absolutely correct about what you were looking for: "a link between being a great novelist and a grasp the emotions of everyday life" and that Answer D perfectly makes this link to close the logical gap in the argument, as Supporter Assumptions do.

As for Answer C, you may want to take a closer look because it actually does Not talk about emotions at all. It mentions "participation in life," which is not the same as "immersion in everyday life" and should be a clue that this answer is wrong. It also mentions observations of life and great novelists, but emotions are not mentioned.

You wrote "I know an assumption can sometimes include extraneous info along with the assumption." Perhaps you are confusing Necessary Assumptions (which we just label Assumption questions) with Sufficient Assumptions (which we refer to as Justify questions). Necessary Assumptions, like this question, can Not include extraneous information.

In fact, that is one of the key differences between Justify answers and Assumption answers because Justify answers can bring in extraneous information as long as they also contain the relevant information that justifies the argument. Think of an assumption as something absolutely necessary for the argument, something that the person making the argument must be thinking for the argument to make sense. Since the person doesn't have to be thinking about extraneous information, it is not necessary for the argument.