#7 - Journalist: The new mayor is undeniably bold. His

[ChicaRosa]

For this question I ended up choosing D instead of A and I want to know why A is correct?

I understand that this is a necessary assumption question and that with this question type you need an answer choice that would weaken the conclusion or fill in the gap between the conclusion and the premises.

I was stuck between answer choices D and A since both include the word "introspective" (which is part of the conclusion) and the wording to these answer choices were similar to each other so I chose D as a quick guess.

So if I were to negate answer choice A, "Introspective people do make assertions with utter certainty and confidence" then it would weaken the conclusion that the mayor is not introspective?

Thanks!

[David Boyle]

For this question I ended up choosing D instead of A and I want to know why A is correct?

I understand that this is a necessary assumption question and that with this question type you need an answer choice that would weaken the conclusion or fill in the gap between the conclusion and the premises.

I was stuck between answer choices D and A since both include the word "introspective" (which is part of the conclusion) and the wording to these answer choices were similar to each other so I chose D as a quick guess.

So if I were to negate answer choice A, "Introspective people do make assertions with utter certainty and confidence" then it would weaken the conclusion that the mayor is not introspective?

Thanks!

Hello ChicaRosa,

When you say "I understand that this is a necessary assumption question and that with this question type you need an answer choice that would weaken the conclusion", I think you mean "...with this question type you need an answer choice THE NEGATION OF WHICH would weaken the conclusion".
It may be useful, yes, to choose an answer with "introspective" in it. However, A is better than D. D is sort of a Mistaken Negation of the correct answer.
The stimulus can be diagrammed,

CC Assertions slash introspective.

The contrapositive of that is the right answer, A, diagrammable as

Introspective slash CC Assertions.

Answer D is diagrammable as

Slash CC Assertions Introspective.

And, re your "So if I were to negate answer choice A, "Introspective people do make assertions with utter certainty and confidence" then it would weaken the conclusion that the mayor is not introspective?", that negated form would weaken the conclusion that "these kinds of assertions . . .demonstrate that he is not an introspective person."

Hope this helps,
David

[15veries]

Hi

So I got this correct, but just wondering...isn't the 1st sentence an opinion?
So I thought the 1st sentence could be the conclusion and was kinda confusing at first.
So at first I thought
not introspective+assertion are certainty and confidence undeniably bold.
But...is the 1st sentence and 2nd sentence actually saying the same thing?
I felt the 1st one is opinion because it says "undenuably" very strong opinion suggestion word I thought.

[Adam Tyson]

That first sentence is an opinion, 15v, and I think it also is a conclusion, but it isn't the main conclusion. The main conclusion has to get all the support in the stimulus and give none - it's selfish. The claim that the mayor is bold is based on the premise in the second sentence about his certainty and confidence, but the main conclusion, supported by both of those statements, is that the mayor is not introspective. Yes, you could say that the first and second sentences are kind of saying the same thing, but I tend to think of the first sentence as being a conclusion based on the second sentence.

Classifying something as an opinion doesn't make it a conclusion, nor does it make it a premise, nor does it make it irrelevant. The question you have to ask is what role that opinion plays in the argument. Is it used to support some other claim? Does it get support from some other claim? Is it a little of both, as in this case? "Opinion" is not a description of a role played in an argument, so don't let them fool you. What you might consider, though, is whether a given opinion is based on some unsupported assumptions, for therein may lie the answer to a Flaw question, or an Assumption question, or a Weaken question, or...you get the idea.

Keep pounding!

[erust2]

I chose A, but got thrown off by C. Can you explain why C is wrong? I chose A since it just seemed stonger. Thanks.

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi erust!

Answer choice (C) tells us that everyone who is bold makes public assertions with utter certainty and confidence. This may be something that the Journalist believes, but it is not necessary for the argument.

The Journalist could believe that there are many bold people who are shy or uncertain speakers. The conclusion is not affected by the truth or falsity of answer choice (C), so it is not necessary for the Journalist to believe this statement.

It seems like you were trying to strengthen the Journalist's conclusion. If you were trying to strengthen the claim that the mayor makes assertions with certainty and confidence, then you misunderstood the argument. That statement is given as a premise for the argument, so we can accept it as true.

You may have also tried to strengthen the claim that the mayor is bold. Answer choice (C) does not add to the author's (intermediate) conclusion that the mayor is bold, since it only tells us something about people whom we already know are bold.

Ultimately however, since this is not a strengthen or weaken question, you should not prefer the answer choice that makes stronger claims. This question is asking you for an assumption that is required by the argument. Oftentimes necessary assumptions are rather weak statements.

Let us know if this helps!

[harvoolio]

One of the difficulties with figuring out the main conclusion is that the technique of paraphrasing one to support the other does not eliminate either option.

"Because the new mayor is undeniably bold, his assertions are made with utter certainty and confidence." sounds equally logical as "Because his assertions are made with utter certainty and confidence, the mayor is undeniably bold."

My diagram was a mess:

Premise: Mayor's assertions are made with utter certainty and confidence.

Premise: Mayor's assertions make him popular. Not the emphasis.

Premise: Mayor's assertions make him not introspective.

Conclusion: Mayor is undeniably bold.

Pre-phrases:

1. People who speak with utter certainty and confidence are bold.
2. People who are not introspective are bold.

Would (C) still be a mistaken reversal? In other words I am looking for boldness as a necessary condition of speaking with utter certainty and confidence, not certainty and confidence as a necessary condition for boldness?

Thanks.

[Adam Tyson]

While it would be possible to make an argument with a premise of "he is bold" and a conclusion of "therefore, he makes statements with utter certainty and confidence", I don't think that's the case in this stimulus, harvoolio. The author isn't trying to prove that the mayor makes those sorts of statements - he's stating that as a fact. That, to me, makes it clear that at least in this case, that claim is a premise and not a conclusion.

I see this argument as:

Premise: He makes statements with certainty
Intermediate Conclusion: He's bold
Main Conclusion: He's not introspective

The assumptions are that people who make those statements are bold, and that those bold people who make such statements are not introspective.

Answer C does look something like a mistaken reversal to me, if you were to approach this conditionally (which is not a bad approach). Your final analysis looks good - nice job!

[HowardQ]

Hi,

While this question only has 3 sentences it's undeniably confusing. While I was reading it, I also thought sentence #1 was the conclusion that He is bold. Since this sentence doesn't seem to have any connection with the rest of the passage. As an assumption question, I was trying to find the missing chain which was number C. After seeing the right explanation above, I am confused, how would being "bold" strengthen the last sentence? Is it because bold is the opposite of Introspective? But if this is the case, sentence 3 seems to be the perfect connection leading to the first sentence. Seeing from the right answer's perspective, "the new mayor is undeniably bold" is completely irrelevant from the stimulus, is this the case? Could someone share the process of how to piece the stimulus together?

Thanks,

[Sky Brooks]

Hi HowardQ,

In the stimulus, the argument is dealing with the relationship between the mayor's assertions and whether or not he is an introspective person. The claim in the argument is that because the mayor makes statements with clarity and confidence, we then know that he is not introspective.

The assumption from this argument is that you can not make that type of assertion AND be introspective (this is answer choice A).

The statement about the mayor being bold does not matter to passage. The word bold is not used in the arguments conclusion and thus we should not use this part of the stimulus to determine the assumption in the argument.

Hope this helps!

-Sky Brooks