PrepTest 129, Section 2, Question 11
Pat: E-mail fosters anonymity, which removes barriers to(41 more words not shown)
The dialogue most strongly supports(12 more words not shown)
- Abarriers to self-revelation(6 more words not shown)
- BE-mail can increase(3 more words not shown)
- Cintimacy between those(10 more words not shown)
- Dreal social bonds(4 more words not shown)
- Ethe use of(5 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Does email actually make people anonymous and willing to reveal themselves? In many ordinary exchanges, the recipient knows exactly who is writing. Still, Pat has a particular possibility in mind: communicating with less concern about one's identity might make it easier to disclose private thoughts or experiences.
Pat calls the resulting openness a kind of intimacy, even between strangers. We might question how often that happens, but Amar's response takes a different route. Being frank is not enough, Amar says. Intimacy requires a real social bond, and forming that bond requires direct personal contact.
What we’re looking for
That gives us the disagreement. Pat thinks email can create intimacy with strangers without the years of direct contact it would otherwise take. Amar says the needed bond cannot form without direct contact at all. For the question, we need a claim one speaker accepts and the other rejects, not merely something one of them discusses.
Working the answers
- A
Pat links fewer barriers to self-revelation with greater intimacy. Amar does not address whether those barriers can hinder the initial growth of intimacy. Saying that openness alone is insufficient does not say that difficulty opening up never gets in the way. We cannot assign Amar the opposite position on A.
- B
Friends might already have the real social bond Amar requires. Amar could allow that email makes those friends closer while denying that email alone can create intimacy between strangers. The relevant difference is whether direct personal contact is needed to form the bond in the first place.
- CCorrect
Pat allows intimacy between people whose communication consists only of email. Amar rules that out: intimacy requires a social bond, and that bond cannot form without direct personal contact. “Solely” captures the condition under which their positions conflict.
- D
Amar says a real social bond is required for intimacy, not that every social bond inevitably produces intimacy. The bond could be one requirement among others. Pat does not offer the proposed guarantee either, so we do not have opposing positions on it.
- E
Pat says email removes barriers to self-revelation, but Amar need not deny that. Amar's response is that frankness is not intimacy. People could disclose more about themselves through email and still lack the social bond Amar considers necessary. The disagreement concerns what that openness can produce, not whether it occurs.
More Disagreement questions
Learn the LSAT our way
Our platform drills Disagreement questions at your level and adjusts as you improve.