Self-study
Conclusion Novelists cannot become great as long as they remain in academia. ██████ ██ ███████████ ███ █████████ █████ ███████ ████████████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ███ █████████ ███ ██ █████████ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ████████ ████ ███ ██ ████████ ████ ██ ███ ████ ██ █████████ ██ ████████ ████ ████ ██ █████████ ██ █████ ██ █████████
Summary
The author concludes that novelists can’t be great if they remain in academia. In other words, in order to be great, they need to be outside of academia.
Why?
Because in order to get an intuitive grasp of the emotions of everyday life, one must be outside academia.
Notable Assumptions
Notice that the conclusion brings up a new concept — what’s required to be a “great” novelist. The premise doesn’t say anything about what’s required to be a great novelist. All that the premise establishes is that in order to have an intuitive grasp of emotions, one cannot be in academia. So what makes the author think one must leave academic in order to be a great novelist? The author is assuming that in order to be a great novelist, you need to have an intuitive grasp of the emotions of everyday life.
14.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ██ █████ ███ ████████ ████████
a
Novelists require some ████████████ ██ ███ ██ █████████ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ████████ █████
Not necessary, because “impartiality” (as in being unbiased) is a concept that has nothing to do with the reasoning. We know that in order to get an intuitive grasp of emotions, one cannot be an academic, but it’s not clear why that would have any relationship to being impartial.
b
No great novelist █████ ██████ ██ ███████████ ███ █████████
Not necessary, because the author wasn’t arguing that novelists in academia lack powers of observation and analysis and that this is why they can’t be great. The author acknowledges that novelists might bevelop those powers in academia; what matters is that they can’t develop an intuitive grasp of everyday emotions.
c
Participation in life, ████████████ ████ █████████ ███████████ ██ █████ █████ █████████ ██████
Not necessary, because being “impartial” (as in being unbiased) is a concept that has nothing to do with the reasoning. We know that in order to get an intuitive grasp of emotions, one cannot be an academic, but it’s not clear why that would have any relationship to being impartial. Also, the argument concerns what’s necessary to be great, not what is sufficient to make novelists great.
d
Novelists cannot be █████ ███████ ██ █████████ █████ ██ ███ ████████ ██ ████████ █████
Necessary, because if this were not true — if novelists CAN be great even if they DON’T have an intuitive grasp of emotions of everyday life — then we have no reason to think that novelists in academia can’t become great. Although academia deprives them of an intutive grasp of emotions, if that isn’t needed to be great, then maybe they can still be great.
e
Knowledge of the ████████ ██ ████████ ████ ██████ ██ ████████ ██ ██████ █████████ ███ █████████ █████
Not necessary, because we know that an INTUITIVE GRASP of emotions can’t be acquired in academia. Even if an academic can develop KNOWLEDGE of emotions, they still cannot develop an INTUITIVE GRASP of emotions.