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ohthatpatrick
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Re: Q15 - Anyone who knows Ellsworth

by ohthatpatrick Fri Dec 31, 1999 8:00 pm

Question Type:
Sufficient Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Anyone who knows Ellsworth would suspect that he's offended by the media's suggesting he's done unethical business stuff.
Evidence: Anyone who knows Ellsworth knows he's self-righteous, bragging about how his generation is morally superior to the previous generation's greed.

Answer Anticipation:
Since there's only one Premise, one Conclusion, and both are facts about the overlapping idea "Everyone who knows Ellsworth would know/suspect _____ ", we're really just connecting the two blanks. We want to prephrase an "IF prem, THEN conc" rule. So we would want "IF someone is self-righteous and idealistic and such, THEN that person would surely be offended by being accused of being unethical."

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) The conclusion isn't about whether E is actually unethical. It's about whether or not people would be surprised that he's offended.

(B) Similarly to (A), we need an rule that gets us to "no one would be surprised he's offended". This is only talking about whether he was/wasn't unethical.

(C) Again, this is useless if it doesn't help us prove "no would be surprised he's offended".

(D) Just like all the others.

(E) Yes! This allows us to prove "no would be surprised he's offended", since we know he's self-righteous and 'everyone expects self-righteous people to be easily offended'.

Takeaway/Pattern: In Sufficient Assumption, if there's a 'New Guy' in the Conclusion, we HAVE to have that in our answer choice. Here, just knowing we were trying to prove the language "no one will be surprised he's offended" would get us quickly to (E).

#officialexplanation
 
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Q15 - Anyone who knows Ellsworth

by nbayar1212 Wed Apr 03, 2013 1:36 am

Can someone explain exactly why A is wrong?
I can clearly see why E fits as the correct answer but I am having a hard time understanding why A is wrong.....

Is it because if everyone (including Ellsworth) suspects self righteous people of being unethical, we would be surprised to learn that he was offended because, well, he already knows that people suspect him of being unethical.....?

But if thats true, why can't he still be offended at the notion? I mean, I can totally suspect that everyone thinks I am a horrible person but still be offended when someone tells me that I am a horrible person...
And, people don't necessarily have a reason to be surprised to know that I am offended because, well, being told that you are horrible is offensive - much like being told that you are engaged in unethical business practices.

Thoughts?
 
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Re: Q15 - Anyone who knows Ellsworth

by fmuirhea Wed Apr 03, 2013 2:45 am

(A) doesn't fit because the conclusion is about the surprise at Ellsworth's being offended, not strictly about being unethical - it's a bit of a distraction.

This is a sufficient assumption question, so chances are we can diagram these statements conditionally and find the gap. Look for a new idea in the conclusion, or for ideas that have not been linked together. Here's how the argument breaks down:


premise: anyone who knows Ellsworth also knows that he is self-righteous
conclusion: no one who knows Ellsworth will be surprised that he's offended by suggestions of unethical behavior


Both of these statements can be reworked as conditionals:


premise: know Ellsworth --> know he's self-righteous
conclusion: know Ellsworth --> ~surprised he's offended (by suggestions of unethical behavior)


Again, the new idea in the conclusion is centered around the idea of surprise at Ellsworth's being offended, and what he's offended by is of secondary importance - hence why I've included it in parentheses.

There is a missing link from know he's self-righteous --> ~surprised he's offended. (E) fills this, albeit in a slightly tricky way. First, it extends the scope from just Ellsworth to all self-righteous people (which is perfectly okay, and even desirable, in this question type, which is essentially a super-strengthener), and it also rewords "~surprised" as "expects" - again, interpreting these as synonyms is perfectly valid in this context.

(A) would diagram as know someone is self-righteous --> suspect that person to be unethical. This fails to get at the central concept in the conclusion, which is whether one should be surprised that Ellsworth is offended. Whether he is in fact unethical has little bearing on the argument, as we simply want to know his reaction to such an accusation, and how surprised one should be at that reaction.

You're right that he could still be offended even if he knows that people expect him to be unethical in the first place, but the problem with (A) is it doesn't lock down the element of surprise, as it were.

I hope this helps!
 
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Re: Q15 - Anyone who knows Ellsworth

by samuelfbaron Sun May 26, 2013 2:27 pm

Could someone elaborate on how 'no one' works in this context?
 
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Re: Q15 - Anyone who knows Ellsworth

by nbayar1212 Sun May 26, 2013 10:16 pm

It basically translates to "If you are a person then you don't________"

If we have a statement that says "no Xs are Y" it means if you are an X then you are not a Y.

If we say that "no one who likes baseball likes video games" it means that if you are someone who likes baseball then you don't like video games.

When I see the statement "no one" I affirm the sufficient condition and negate the necessary condition.

In the context of the question, that means when I see the sentence "So no one who knows him will be surprised that Ellsworth is easily offended" I affirm the sufficient (If you ARE someone who knows him) and negate the necessary (then you WON'T be surprised that he is easily offended).


**Also, thank you fmuirhea for the thorough explanation.