Self-study
Some moral virtues, such as honesty, tend to benefit one who has them; others, such as generosity, do not. █ ████████ ██████████████ ██ ███ █ █████ ██████ ██ ██ █████ ██ ██ ███████████ ██ █████ ███████
Objective: Must Be True Questions
Must Be True questions present a series of claims in the stimulus, then ask us to provide an additional claim that can be validly inferred (i.e. on the spectrum of support, our answer choice must be super-duperly supported).
So it’s highly beneficial to spend time up front wrapping your head around the stimulus – simplifying or diagramming grammatically-complex claims, splitting out combined claims into two or more separate claims, etc. – and the dream is to generate your own inference(s) to proactively seek out in the answer choices.
That’s not always practical (sometimes it’s just hard, and sometimes there are too many to track), in which case using process of elimination – measuring each answer choice against the stimulus to ask “does this follow?” – is completely fine. But process of elimination or no, you need a crystal clear understanding of the stimulus.
Distilling The Premises
In my first run through the stimulus, I, the person writing this explanation, didn’t explicitly note the specific claims that turn out to be crucial in the correct answer choice. I only realized they needed to be explicitly stated after reading the answers and backtracking. I mention this because it’s a thing that happens to everyone, and I don’t want to pretend catching everything in this stimulus is super obvious.
Here’s the list of claims you can draw from the stimulus:
- Some moral virtues do tend to benefit you.
- Some moral virtues don’t tend to benefit you.
- Honesty does benefit you.
- Generosity does not benefit you.
- Moral virtues never tend to be detrimental to others.
(And here are the ones I initially glossed over) - Honesty is a moral virtue.
- Generosity is a moral virtue.
As a general principle, it’s much easier to draw valid inferences from “all” claims than it is to draw them from “some” claims. So even if you’re looking at this long list of claims and thinking “there’s way too many to anticipate anything specific,” you should at least move into the answer choices with a focus on claims other than 1 and 2.
22.
If the statements above are █████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ██ █████
a
A person totally ███████ ██ █████ ██████ ████ ████ ███ ██ ████ ███████████████ ████ ███████ ███████
Distilled, (A) says: If no moral virtue, then no benefit others.
Like (C) and (E), you may think (A) is true based on common sense, but our job is to figure out what must be true based on the claims presented in the stimulus. Our stimulus discusses things impacting you a lot, but the only mention of impacting others comes in claim 5. Zooming in, (A) is the inverse of claim 5, which is not a valid inference.
Claim 5: Moral Virtue → /Detrimental To Others
(A): /Moral Virtue → /Benefit Others
Perhaps you noticed the jump from “not being detrimental” to “not benefitting” in the comparison above. These are different concepts too, and that distinction turns out to be essential to eliminate (D).
b
Being honest tends ███ ██ ██ ███████████ ██ █████ ███████
(B) combines claims 5 and 6 to draw a valid inference:
5: Moral virtues never tend to be detrimental to others.
6: Honesty is a moral virtue.
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(B): Honesty never tends to be detrimental to others.
(This is the point at which I backtracked and realized claim 6 is super important to explicate.)
c
A morally virtuous ██████ █████ ██ ██ █ ███████ ███████ ██ █████ ██████ ████ █ ██████ ███ ██ ███ ███████ █████████
Like (A) and (E), you may think (C) is true based on common sense, but our job is to figure out what must be true based on the claims presented in the stimulus. For starters, none of our claims address what it means to be a morally virtuous person. The claims are about moral virtues themselves, and there’s a lot of wiggle room between those two concepts. It’s not necessarily true, for example, that morally virtuous people are characterized by all and only moral virtues and not-virtuous people have zero moral virtues.
Beyond that, (C) compares how much good and bad people benefit others, but the concept of benefitting others never appears in the stimulus. The closest we get is not being detrimental to others, but that’s different: if I refrain from smacking you in the face, I’ve succeeded in not being detrimental to you, but I also haven’t benefitted you.
d
Being generous tends ██ ██ ██ █████ ███ █████████ ███ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ███████
(D) is super tempting. Check it out:
4: Generosity does not benefit you.
5: Moral virtues never tend to be detrimental to others.
6: Generosity is a moral virtue.
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(D): Generosity is detrimental to you (4), and not detrimental to others (5+6).
The only thing wrong with (D) is the distinction between “not benefitting” and “being detrimental.” If I decline to give you $1000, I’ve succeed in not benefitting you, but I also haven’t been detrimental to you.
e
If a personal ██████████████ ████ ███ ███ █████ ██ ███████ ███████ ████ ████ ████████ ██████████████ ██ █ █████ ███████
Like (A) and (C), you may think (E) is true based on common sense, but our job is to figure out what must be true based on the claims presented in the stimulus. The concept of benefitting others never appears in the stimulus. The closest we get is not being detrimental to others, but that’s different: if I refrain from smacking you in the face, I’ve succeeded in not being detrimental to you, but I also haven’t benefitted you.
You can’t draw valid inferences about claims that never appear in the premises.