PrepTest 134, Section 3, Question 24
If one wants to succeed, then one should(38 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(7 more words not shown)
- AThose who convince(11 more words not shown)
- BGenuine confidence is(6 more words not shown)
- CSuccess is usually(10 more words not shown)
- DMany people who(11 more words not shown)
- ESelf-doubt can hamper(12 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Acting confident on the outside doesn't mean feeling confident on the inside.
The recommendation is to act as if you believe in your abilities even when you don't. But the support concerns people who genuinely believe they can succeed. What if you put on a convincing-looking performance and remain full of doubts? Then the evidence about genuine confidence wouldn't explain why your performance helps.
There are also limits worth keeping in mind. Pretending you can fly a plane doesn't teach you to fly it. Confidence isn't a substitute for the skills a task requires. But the immediate gap in this argument is between pretending to believe in yourself and actually believing in yourself.
What we’re looking for
For a strengthener, I'd want evidence that the act can affect the feeling: behaving confidently can help someone develop real confidence. That would give the recommendation a route to the advantage described in the premise.
Working the answers
- A
Convincing others isn't the same as simply acting confident, and we don't know that the recommended performance convinces anyone. This also doesn't show that putting on the performance reduces the actor's doubts. People who convince others might already have had genuine confidence. We need a reason pretending can help someone who starts out doubtful.
- BCorrect
Pretended confidence often produces genuine confidence. That connects the recommended behavior to the quality associated with easier success. The chain is now: act confident, perhaps develop real confidence through that behavior, and gain the advantage the passage attributes to genuine belief. The answer supports the strategy without guaranteeing that every person or every performance will succeed.
- C
Luck or determination could matter more than skill while confidence still makes some difference. Ranking those other factors doesn't tell us whether pretending to be confident creates the benefit the author promises. The question is about the usefulness of this particular strategy, not a complete ranking of every contributor to success.
- D
Finding people who both act confidently and feel confident doesn't tell us which comes first. People might act confidently because they already believe in themselves. That would explain D while giving a doubtful person no reason to expect that copying the behavior will change the feeling. B supplies the helpful direction that D lacks.
- E
This gives self-doubt mixed effects on developing skills: it can both hinder and help. Neither effect shows that acting confident produces genuine confidence or otherwise supports the recommendation. Even a harmful effect of doubt wouldn't, by itself, establish that pretending is an effective way to overcome it.
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