Q17 - Advice columnist: Parents should not encourage

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Principle-Strengthen

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Parents shouldn't encourage their kids to care so much about outdoing others.

Evidence: When you're trying to outdo others, it fosters resentment and it makes you less happy, because you're chasing a goal that's difficult to reach.

Answer Anticipation:
The most common type of answer is "IF premise, THEN conclusion", which would sound something like,
"If a goal fosters resentment or makes you less happy, then your parents should not encourage you to place great value on that goal."

If the answer is phrased in the "Should Rule-of-Thumb" style, it might sound like
"Parents shouldn't place great value on things that lead to resentment or unhappiness".

Correct Answer:
C

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) We need a rule about what parents SHOULDN'T encourage. And the notion of "the things they do well" is out of scope.

(B) We need a rule about what parents SHOULDN'T encourage. And the notion of "at least some desires that are easy to satisfy".

(C) Maybe (ultimately YES), but are we talking about "acquiring a trait"? We're saying we shouldn't encourage a person "to place great value on a goal". That's pretty different. Only after I've seen all five answers would I come back to this. I guess we can say that "placing great value on outdoing others" is a trait some people have, some don't. These people care so much about outdoing others that it's one of their traits. (and they ACQUIRED that trait?) It's weird, but it's best available.

(D) "Significant achievements"? That doesn't match anything in the argument.

(E) This is a rule about how important something is/isn't. We're looking for a rule about what parents should/shouldn't encourage.

Takeaway/Pattern: On Principle-Strengthen questions, tons of answer choices can often be eliminated by focusing on whether or not they provide you with a rule that delivers you the type of language you need in your conclusion. Here, we needed a rule that could deliver us a verdict of "Parents SHOULD NOT encourage this." The only answer remotely close was (C), because it was a rule about what one "should not encourage". And "less happy" also connects to the evidence, whereas "things they do well" / "at least some desires that are easy" / "significant achievements" did not.

#officialexplanation

[WilliamS670]

'...trait...' does not necessarily mean 'personality trait', i.e. something like enviousness, competitiveness, etc. The test-writers could have used better language here, although I'd still call this a fair question (unlike, ahem, Q #23). Trait simply means 'attribute', so a disposition to place great value on outdoing others qualifies as a trait. But yeah, if you read trait as 'personality trait', then (C) might appear problematic, because a disposition to place great value on outdoing others would be a consequence of a personality trait, rather than a personality trait itself. Or that's my read on this question.