PrepTest 114, Section 4, Question 16
People who do not believe that others distrust(42 more words not shown)
The conclusion above follows logically(8 more words not shown)
- APeople who believe(8 more words not shown)
- BConfidence in one's(10 more words not shown)
- CPeople who tend(10 more words not shown)
- DPeople who are(11 more words not shown)
- EPeople tend to(7 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
I can trust you while thinking you don't trust me. Those are different directions of trust.
Keep that distinction clear in the passage. The first group consists of people who do not believe others distrust them. We are told they have confidence in their own abilities. Confident people, in turn, view a difficult task as a challenge rather than a threat.
That gives us a route to the attitude in the conclusion. But the conclusion starts with people who tend to trust others. How do those people enter the route? Their attitude toward others doesn't automatically tell us what they believe about others' attitude toward them.
What we’re looking for
We need an assumption that makes the conclusion follow. I'd connect the conclusion's starting group to the first premise: people who trust others do not believe those others distrust them. Then they would have the stated confidence, and that confidence would carry us to seeing difficult tasks as challenges.
Working the answers
- A
This starts with people who believe others distrust them, then says they tend to trust others. We need to start with those who trust others and establish that they do not hold the belief about being distrusted. A uses the wrong belief and gives no route from the conclusion's starting group to confidence.
- B
This runs in the wrong direction. It says confidence in one's own abilities produces trust in others. We need to establish confidence for people who already trust others.
Knowing that confident people trust others doesn't tell us that everyone who trusts others is confident. Some trusting people could lack confidence, and B would still be true. Those people would remain outside the premise that gives confident people the challenge-not-threat attitude.
- CCorrect
Begin with someone who tends to trust others. C tells us that person does not believe others distrust them. The first premise then tells us that this person is confident in their own abilities, and the last premise tells us that confident people regard difficult tasks as challenges rather than threats. Every connection is now supplied.
Use the wording carefully: not believing that others distrust you doesn't have to mean positively believing that they trust you. C matches the first premise as written, so we don't need to add that stronger belief to complete the argument.
- D
This begins with people who already aren't threatened by difficult tasks. The argument hasn't shown that the people who trust others are in that group. Even if D moves from a lack of threat to finding a challenge, it leaves us without the first connection needed to apply the rule to the people in the conclusion.
- E
This concerns whom people distrust when they think someone lacks self-confidence. It doesn't connect a person's trust in others with that person's belief about being distrusted. The familiar words don't reproduce the needed relationship. We still can't follow the conclusion's starting group into the confidence premise.
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