PrepTest 120, Section 4, Question 11
Historian: One traditional childrearing practice in the nineteenth(73 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- AThe beliefs of(13 more words not shown)
- BSome of the(20 more words not shown)
- CWith the traditional(16 more words not shown)
- DThe most confident(12 more words not shown)
- EIf children's loss(24 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The psychologists expect a lasting loss of confidence, but the adults don't show it. Something in that explanation needs another look.
The proposed chain has two links. Sitting outside as punishment supposedly damages a child's self-esteem. That loss of self-esteem supposedly makes the child a less confident adult. Yet the historian says adults raised with that practice were, on average, just as confident as other adults.
This feels like a puzzle to resolve, but we're asked what can be inferred. Be careful: the passage reports what the psychologists believe. We don't have to treat every part of their explanation as an established fact. And we shouldn't jump from “the predicted difference wasn't there” to “everything the psychologists believe is wrong.”
What we’re looking for
I don't yet have a precise answer in mind. Let's see what the choices let us conclude from the mismatch, keeping the two proposed links separate.
Working the answers
- A
Which belief is wrong? The evidence doesn't single out the link between lost self-esteem and later confidence. That link could hold while the punishment failed to damage self-esteem in the first place. A attacks one particular part of the explanation without establishing that it is the part that failed.
- B
An equal average tells us nothing this specific about the extremes. The two groups could have the same average confidence without containing the same kinds of exceptionally confident or exceptionally unconfident people. We aren't told who belongs at either end.
- C
We are told what passersby would conclude, not that they sometimes concluded it incorrectly. Someone might sit outside for another reason, but the historian doesn't give us that information. We can't infer the proposed mistakes just by imagining that they could happen.
- D
This ranks the most confident adults by their childhood self-esteem. Neither the group averages nor the psychologists' general belief establishes that ranking. A connection between two things doesn't automatically identify who has the highest level of each.
- ECorrect
This keeps the link from lost self-esteem to lower adult confidence as a condition. If that link holds, the lack of lower confidence gives us reason to conclude that this punishment didn't generally cause a significant loss of self-esteem.
That is how the two observations can fit together: loss of self-esteem could harm later confidence, but sitting outside might not have caused that loss. Notice the care in the wording. E doesn't declare every psychologist wrong, and it doesn't say that no individual child was ever affected. It concerns what the practice tended to do.
More Must Be True questions
Learn the LSAT our way
Our platform drills Must Be True questions at your level and adjusts as you improve.