#25 - Literary critic: A folktale is a traditional story

[maria34ley]

Can someone please go through the answer choices and explain why they are incorrect and why the correct answer is correct. I am looking for an explanation, as it if was used as an example in the LR Bible for justify conclusion section.

Thank you in advance!

[James Finch]

Hi Maria,

Hopefully I can fit the bill for you! First thing to note is that this is a Justify question, meaning the correct answer choice will be filling in a missing premise that proves the conclusion to 100% certainty. So what is our conclusion? Buried in the middle of the stimulus, we can put together the end of the first and second sentences to infer that folktales possess deeper meaning. The premises on which this rest are:

P1: Folktales provide great insight into the wisdom of their respective cultures

P2: [Missing]

Conclusion: Folktales possess deeper meaning

So from diagramming the relevant part of the stimulus, we can see that the correct answer choice must link "insight into the wisdom of a culture" with "deeper meaning." Both are vague phrases, without any definition given by the stimulus, so the linkage will have to be direct and explicit to work. We can diagram it as:

Insight into Wisdom Deep Meaning

Now that we know what to look for, let's dive into the answer choices:

(A)--Simply restates the premise about how folktales give insight, but doesn't link that to deeper meaning. Immediate Loser.

(B)-- Links insight into wisdom and deep meaning, and does so in the same

Insight into Wisdom Deep Meaning

way that we need to justify the conclusion. Looks good, and if short on time, an instant winner.

(C)--Deals with a direct rebuttal of the initial sentence, which is not the argument that the stimulus actually makes. So irrelevant, and a Loser answer choice.

(D)--Links deep meaning to insight into wisdom of a culture, making it attractive. However, it does so in the wrong way:

Deep Meaning Insight into Wisdom

So it's actually a Mistaken Reversal of the correct answer. This is where a good Prephrase really comes in handy.

(E)-- Back to irrelevancy, doing something similar to (C). The stimulus already assumes this to be true; what we're looking for is something that justifies the conclusion with 100% certainty, not leaves it open to being possibly true.

Hope this clears things up!

[maria34ley]

Hi James,

Thank you for the thorough explanation! It makes sense now.

Have a great evening!

Maria

[James Finch]

Glad that cleared everything up! Enjoy your evening as well!

[deck1134]

For some reason, I chose C on this question. IS it possible that C would allow for the conclusion?

[Who Ray]

Hey Deck!

The conclusion of this argument is that folk tales do not lack deeper meaning, not that folk tales are told for something other than entertainment. Therefore, any assumptions about things that lack deeper meaning do not help the argument. However, connecting deeper meaning with great wisdom does!

I hope that helps,
Who Ray

[relona]

I understand why (B) is correct. I just don't understand why (D) is wrong. From my knowledge of conditional reasoning is (D) a mistaken reversal? And if so, how is it a mistaken reversal? I might've come up with the wrong conditional statement Why can it not be:

deep meaning --> wisdom of the culture

Thanks!

-relona

[Robert Carroll]

relona,

Answer choice (D) is a Mistaken Reversal, and your diagram proves that. You have "deep meaning" (correctly!) as the sufficient condition of the conditional. "Deep meaning" is in the conclusion of the stimulus. So it's what we're trying to prove. Any conditional with "deep meaning" as its sufficient condition will tell us what else we can infer if we already know the conclusion. "If you knew this had deep meaning, then you'd also know..." is useless - we are trying to prove that something has deep meaning. What we could do if we already knew that is irrelevant, as we don't already know the conclusion is true (otherwise, we would already have Justified the Conclusion).

We want something like "From X, you can infer deep meaning", not "From deep meaning, you can infer Y", because the latter starts from what we don't know.

Robert Carroll