PT146.S3.Q6 > Explanation

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The decisions that one makes can profoundly affect one's life years later. So one should not regret the missed opportunities of youth, for had one decided instead to seize one of these opportunities, one would not have some of the close personal relationships one currently has. And everyone deeply cherishes their close personal relationships.

Objective: Build the Premise → Conclusion Bridge

The language here is very abstract, so let's pretend that the author is discussing a specific person named Sam. The author concludes that Sam should not regret any missed opportunities of youth. Why not? Because if Sam had taken any of those missed opportunities, Sam might have missed out on certain close personal relationships. And everyone finds their close personal relationships to be very important.

Having un-abstracted the argument, we need to better justify it by building a premise-to-conclusion bridge that fills in a gap. So where's the gap? The author establishes that taking missed opportunities could have cost Sam certain cherished relationships, but then jumps to the conclusion that Sam shouldn't regret those missed opportunities. To bridge this gap, the correct answer will say that if a particular course of events led to a cherished relationship, then Sam should not regret that course of events.

The answer's phrasing might be more or less specific; if it follows the tone of the stimulus, it will likely be very abstract. So focus on the effect of each answer choice: we need something that bridges from the correct premises to the correct conclusion. The author claims that one shouldn’t regret one’s past decisions because, had those decisions not been made, some of one’s current cherished personal relationships would not exist.

Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps to justify the reasoning in the argument?

One should not regret making a decision unless a different decision would have resulted in one having a greater number of close personal relationships.

The author doesn't compare between the number of personal relationships resulting from different decisions; each relationship is treated as deeply important. So because (A) depends on this idea of comparison, it doesn't trigger, and can't justify the argument..

One should not regret making a decision if it helped to bring about something that one cherishes.

The author establishes that past decisions not to seize opportunities helped bring about cherished personal relationships. (B) thus triggers, and it confirms that one should not regret those decisions—the correct conclusion. This is the bridge we're looking for.

95%

One should not regret making a decision that had little effect on one's life.

The author only references decisions that had an effect on one’s life: they led to cherished personal relationships. Because we're not discussing decisions that had little effect, (C) doesn't trigger.

People who regret the missed opportunities of youth should cherish their close personal relationships more deeply.

The author’s conclusion is that one should not regret missed opportunities, not that one should cherish their relationships more; (D) leads to the wrong conclusion. (D) also doesn't trigger, because the author doesn't mention people who already regret missed opportunities; the argument is that people shouldn't regret to begin with.

People with few close personal relationships should cherish the ones they have.

The author doesn't mention the number of relationships someone has, so (E) doesn't trigger based on the stimulus. Even if it did, (E) would lead to the incorrect conclusion that relationships should be cherished; we need to justify the conclusion that one should not regret missed opportunities.

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PrepTest 146 - Section 3 - Question 6

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