Q10 - Most people are indignant

[wj097]

Hello,

This was a really really frustrating question for me...
1) Diving into the answer choices, the conclusion that I had in mind (it is hard to acquire the self-knowledge that one is not reliable authority of one's real wants - paraphrased 1st and 2nd sentence) didn't jump out...after checking answer (E), it still doesn't seems quite right...there's slight jump in logic (something is easy/hard to acquire self-knowledge => indeed self-knowledge can be true). How am I supposed to reconcile this with the mlsat lesson that says not to make your own conclusion....


2) With this frustration, I went back to the stimulus, and now it almost feels like the last sentence (people convince themselves that they want what society want..) is the conclusion. I think because it has the flaw of circular reasoning???

Please help...

[bbirdwell]

First of all, Preptest 18 is 20 years old and I would advise working with more recent material until you've really nailed the fundamentals.

That said, the strategies we advocate work just fine here. I actually proceeded the same way you did with this question, at first.

Classic structure here: Most people ______.... BUT those people are wrong, and here's why ______.

Typically we can expect the conclusion to follow the "but/however" and, generally, to disagree or invalidate the opinion of "Most people/experts/critics/whatever."

So I ran to the choices with the same thing in mind that you did "self knowledge isn't easy to acquire."

It's not there! Hmm... Maybe that's not exactly it. Maybe there's more to this #10 than meets the eye (one of the first 10 is always more difficult than we'd expect).

Our structural view here is not flawed. The pattern is crystal clear. So let us look more deeply about the opinion of "most people," which we know the author is going to criticize or attack in some way.

Most people are indignant at suggestions that they don't know what they want.

Paraphrased without the negatives:
Most people think they know what they want.

Things are always tricky when a "negative" word like indignant is used. Or double negatives like "not indignant" or, as the case is here, the combination of two words like "indignant" and "don't." It pays to slow down and adjust them, rewrite them if necessary, til we really own them.

Most people believe that they know what they want.

So what must are author believe, then? That most people DON'T know what they want!

Why? Because self-knowledge is difficult to acquire! (it's difficult to acquire because it's risky) And also, people are delusional! (ok that was loose -- but you get what I'm saying: the last sentence)

Therefore, (E) is the best choice. It's the structurally-supported choice, and that's always a reliable way to approach things. It simply says "People don't know what they want."

The moment you see the words "Most" + "critics/voters/people/scientists/economists/experts"

You can make a 99% accurate prediction that the author's conclusion is either 1) that those people are wrong or 2) that whatever those people say isn't the case.