#21 - A smoker trying to quit is more likely to succeed if

[persde]

When I first read through this problem, I thought that the first sentence was the main conclusion. Having read through why answer choice (D) is correct, I realize that the last sentence is really the main conclusion here. Am I correct in my thinking? Because I think that by misidentifying the main conclusion, I led myself to the incorrect answer choice (A).

Thank you!

[Jennifer Janowsky]

You are correct, in this case the last sentence is the main conclusion: That since deception is needed, you need an outside party to do it. What's missing here is why a person can't deceive themselves. Hope that helps!

[akanshalsat]

I do not understand why E is wrong

It was explained that:

"In this case, the author's conclusion is that people can't adopt this stop-smoking strategy unless some third-party provides the warning because (premise) the strategy involves deception. "

This seems that its assuming that it should not be left to the people SINCE it involves deception, giving deception a bad connotation, perhaps bc it would be justified for the common people to do it, but its OKAY/justified for the doctor to, as is advised in the stimulus.

The easyness/difficulty to understand one's own deception, as D hints at, isnt hinted at in the stimulus... I'm confused

[Adam Tyson]

Hey again akanshalsat! Your analysis here requires bringing in some outside information and assumptions of your own, and those appear to be getting in your way. The big problem I see is that you are looking this stimulus as having some component of an opinion in it, something about what should or should not be. But this argument has no "should" component to it! The author offers no value judgments, no pros or cons, nothing that would tie to the concept of justification that is in answer E. Instead, this argument is strictly factual - something works, but only if deception is involved, and therefore in order to make it work someone else has to be involved. Is this good or bad? We have no idea! So we must avoid answers like answer E at all cost here.

Looked at very strictly, without value judgments, we have a claim that deception is required for success, therefore a third party is required for success. The assumption will link the two disconnected elements here - deception and third parties - in a way that makes third parties necessary for deception. That would be approached conditionally this way:

Deception Third Party

or via the contrapositive, as answer D does:

Third Party Deception

Now, try the negation technique on answer D. What if people CAN easily deceive themselves? If that were true, would we need a third party in order to get the deception that is required for success? Nope! We could just deceive ourselves, and the strategies would work without outside assistance.

Avoid bringing in those outside assumptions, in this case about what should or shouldn't happen, and stick to the information in the stimulus to create your prephrase. Give that another look and see if it makes sense to you.