PT17.S2.Q2

PrepTest 17 - Section 2 - Question 2

Hide analysis

Many people do not understand themselves, nor do they try to gain self-understanding. █████ ██████ █████ ███ ██ ██████████ ███████ ███ █████ ████████ ███ ████ ██ █████ ███████ ███████ ██████████████████ ██ ██ ██████████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ██ ██ █████ ████ ████ ████ ██████ ███ █████ ██████████████████ ████ ██ █████████ ██ █████████████ ███████

Objective: Identify a Flaw

The stimulus comes to the conclusion that if someone lacks self-understanding, they can't understand others. But what support is offered for this conclusion? Simply the same claim again, that without self-understanding, a person can't understand others.

What's worse, this restatement is the only support given in the argument. The rest of the stimulus broadly discusses self-understanding, but doesn't say anything more to justify the idea that self-understanding is necessary to understand others. So the argument's conclusion is just a restatement of its premise: the stimulus commits circular reasoning.

Show answer
2.

The reasoning in the argument ██ ██████ ███████ ███ ████████

a

mistakes something that ██ █████████ ██ █████ █████ █ █████████ ███ █████████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ ██████ ██ █████ █████ ████ █████████

The stimulus only makes a single conditional claim: that self-understanding is a necessary condition to understand others. This same claim is repeated identically as the argument's conclusion; there's no room for sufficient-necessary confusion because there's only one conditional claim.

13%
b

fails to take ████ ███████ ███ ███████████ ████ ███ ████████ █████ ██ ████ █ ████████ █████████████ ██ ███████ ██ ███████

The argument's conclusion is about self-understanding being a necessary condition for understanding others. Whether people want to understand themselves doesn't affect that conclusion, so even if that possibility is overlooked, that wouldn't be a flaw.

0%
c

blames people for █████████ ███ █████ ████ ██████ ████████████ ██ ████ ███████████

The argument doesn't make any accusations of blame. Because (C) doesn't accurately describe the argument, it can't be the correct flaw.

0%
d

makes use of ███ ██████████ █████ ████ ████████████████████████ ███████ ████████ ████ ████

The argument doesn't specifically define self-understanding, but that's fine, because the way that term is used isn't vague. It's simply used to mean a person's understanding of themself.

2%
e

draws a conclusion ████ ██████ ████████ █ █████ █████ ██ ███████ ██ ████ ██████████

The argument concludes that self-understanding is necessary to understand others. The only real support is a restatement of that same claim. This is circular reasoning, the same flaw described by (E).

85%

Confirm action

Are you sure?