The question stem says, which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument depends?

So this is a necessary assumption question.

Let's start by figuring out what the premises are and what the conclusion is,

and then let's think about why the premises currently don't prove the conclusion,

because that will help us understand what the argument needs to assume.

So young people think, if we try to improve these things, they're not going to work.

This pessimism is probably harmful to humanity's future,

because people lose motivation to work for goals that they think are unrealizable.

Now, so far, it looks like we do have a premise-conclusion structure,

but I can see that the author seems to build on the ideas in the first two statements,

and so that suggests to me the main conclusion is going to come later,

and the argument that's happening here, it would just be an intermediate conclusion,

or an argument that ends up supporting another point.

But let me go ahead and, for the purpose of this explanation,

just break down what's happening in the first two sentences.

So the first sentence is saying that young people are pessimistic.

And I know that I'm doing a little bit of characterization,

because literally it says they have this belief,

but the author characterizes that as pessimism.

So I'm using that same term here.

So young people are pessimistic.

Now, the author also tells us that people lose motivation to work for goals they think are unrealizable.

And I'll just think of that concept as lose motivation.

Lose motivation to work towards things they think are unrealizable.

And from these two ideas, the author reaches this intermediate conclusion

that this pessimism here is harmful to humanity's future.

And I'll put that idea over here.

What's happening in this part of the argument is that the author is assuming that if young people are pessimistic,

or in other words, if they have this belief that trying to improve these things won't work,

then that will mean that they will lose motivation to work for those goals,

because they think those goals are unrealizable.

And then the author is also assuming here that if people lose motivation

to work for goals they think are unrealizable,

then that is something that is harmful to humanity's future.

Now, it's possible I think you understood this relationship just intuitively.

And if so, that's great.

But I just wanted to spell out that within those first two sentences,

the author has this relationship in mind.

That people's pessimism will cause them to lose motivation,

and then in turn, that loss of motivation to work for certain goals is going to hurt humanity's future.

Now, this is not the end of the argument because the author continues.

The author says, we must do what we can to prevent this loss of motivation.

So we must try to prevent this loss of motivation.

And because we have to try to prevent that, here we get the author's main conclusion.

We therefore must enable our children to believe that better futures are possible.

This is the main conclusion.

And I'll put that conclusion below this line here.

We must enable the belief that better futures are possible.

Now, in context, I was very tempted to treat that conclusion as just the idea

that we should help our young people avoid pessimism,

because that seems to be what that means.

Helping them believe better futures are possible means helping them be less pessimistic.

So I don't know that it would be wrong to interpret it that way.

But I'm being very literal here and being careful about assuming one thing means another thing,

because that part was in the conclusion.

And so I want to be very careful about just assuming that concepts in the conclusion are the same thing

as concepts mentioned elsewhere.

Because potentially, that actually is one of the assumptions of the argument.

That enabling the belief that a better future is possible will help people avoid pessimism.

Maybe that is an assumption of the argument.

So that's why I'm just being very careful here.

Now, before we go to these answers, I just want to recap the core part of the argument,

because there was a little bit of a distraction in the beginning.

In the beginning, we got this mini-argument that involved the author assuming this particular chain.

But the rest of the argument really just relates to this part of the chain.

The part about harm just falls away, because the rest of the argument doesn't relate to that.

And what the author is saying about this part of the relationship,

is that we know that young people's pessimism causes them to lose motivation.

Since we want to avoid the loss of motivation,

we must enable children to believe a better future is possible.

Now, potentially, the assumption is enabling the belief that a better future is possible

is something that will help avoid young people being pessimistic.

But maybe there's another assumption going on that's just hard to spot.

So this is how I think about the problem before going to the answers.

Now, let's start with answer choices C, D, and E, because it usually comes down to the other two.

even if that optimism is based on an illusory vision of what is likely to occur.

Well, this is not necessary, because the author never actually indicates

whether pessimism or optimism is illusory or not.

In order to say that optimism is better, even if it's an illusory vision,

that would mean that there's something wrong about being this optimistic.

That the reality is actually worse than what we believe.

But nothing in this argument relates to whether things are actually as bad

as people think they are, or not as bad.

So that's why answer choice C is not necessary.

And if that doesn't make sense, another way of putting it is that it's entirely possible

that the author thinks optimism is not illusory, that optimism is actually real,

and that it reflects what is actually going to happen in the future.

And so maybe that's why the author wants the young people to avoid pessimism.

The author doesn't have to think that optimism is better even if it's, like, false.

Maybe it's not false in this case, and that's part of what's motivating the author.

if future generations believe that the future can be better,

then pollution, poverty, and war will be eliminated.

Well, no, that's too extreme.

The author does not have to believe that improving young people's attitudes here

will eliminate these things.

Now, the author might think that improving young people's attitudes

will help them avoid the loss of motivation.

But that doesn't mean the author thinks it's going to solve

all those serious problems in the world.

Maybe it will help alleviate those problems.

That doesn't mean that it'll eliminate those problems.

And finally, E says the current prevalence of such problems as pollution and poverty

Well, no, this is not necessary because the author doesn't tell us the cause of these problems.

We don't know why those problems exist.

Now, we know that the author thinks that people's attitudes

is causing them not to try to improve those problems

or not to try to solve those problems,

but that doesn't reveal anything about the origin of those problems.

So that's why E is not necessary.

So now we get down to A and B.

will enable them to believe that the future can be better

and will cause them to be less pessimistic.

Now, this is not necessary,

even though it sounds kind of similar to what's necessary.

Now, first, let's get clear on what this relationship means.

The author thinks that the pessimism,

meaning this belief that we can't improve these things,

the author thinks that that causes people to lose motivation to work for certain goals.

But that doesn't mean that improving their motivation

will cause them not to believe this anymore.

And if that's not clear, take a look at this analogy.

Let's say we know that the flu causes headaches.

Does that imply that if you help relieve someone's headache,

perhaps by giving them a Tylenol,

that that would cause them not to have a flu?

Of course not. That doesn't make any sense.

One thing can cause another thing,

but that doesn't mean relieving the symptom will make the underlying cause go away.

And similarly, the author thinks that young people's pessimism

is causing them to lose motivation to work for certain goals.

But that doesn't mean helping them lose the motivation

will then make the underlying cause go away.

That's why A is not necessary.

Now, what the author does believe

is that if you can help address the underlying cause,

that's going to help you avoid this particular effect.

In the same way that if we can prevent someone from getting a flu,

we can help them avoid headaches.

Now, that doesn't mean that we think

if we can prevent someone from getting a flu

that they will never get a headache,

because headaches can be caused by other things.

But if we know that a flu does cause a headache,

it's fair to say that we can at least help someone avoid a headache

by getting rid of one of the causes of a headache.

And so in this case, the author is assuming

that if we can help avoid this particular cause of loss of motivation,

that's going to help us avoid loss of motivation.

But that doesn't mean the author thinks

if we can help people avoid loss of motivation,

that that will then work backwards

and help them avoid one underlying cause.

So that's why A is not necessary.

But let's consider B now.

that better futures are possible

will help prevent the loss of motivation

that results from pessimistic beliefs about the future.

This is something that's necessary

because this is required in order for the author

to say that we must enable the belief

that better futures are possible.

If you negate answer choice B,

what I mean is enabling people to believe

that better futures are possible

will not help prevent the loss of motivation

that results from pessimistic beliefs.

But if doing this does not help prevent

the loss of motivation,

then how could the fact that we need to prevent

the loss of motivation justify saying

that we need to do this?

If what the author is saying we need to do

doesn't actually help avoid loss of motivation,

why would we need to do that?

That's why the negation of answer choice B

undermines the link between these premises

and in that way it weakens the argument

if you negate B.

That's what proves B is necessary.