#11 - Teacher to a student: You agree that it is bad to break promises. But when we speak to each

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption. The correct answer choice is (D).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[ashpine17]

i got caught way off guard on this one; how do we know to look for implicit versus explicit promise?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Ash,

The question really why the student should break one promise over another. We know the student made a promise to Jeanne that they would convey to the teacher that Jeanne was home sick. The teacher indicates that there's always an implicit promise to tell the truth. If Jeanne's statement was a lie, and the student knows that, which promise should they break? The explicit promise to Jeanne has to be balanced against the implicit promise of truth in communication. The teacher indicates that the implicit promise is the one not to break. We need something to support that.

Answer choice (D) is necessary because it's central to the conclusion here. If we negate the answer choice, it would say that all implicit promises are NEVER worse to break than any explicit promise. That contradicts our stimulus which concludes that the implicit promise IS worse to break. Therefore, it must be our correct answer.

Hope that helps!