PrepTest 155, Section 1, Question 22
Essayist: The historical figures that we find most(50 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- AThe historical figures(15 more words not shown)
- BBravery and creativity(11 more words not shown)
- CHistorical figures are(4 more words not shown)
- DPeople develop their(15 more words not shown)
- EMoral virtue is(10 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Someone can be admirable without making a fascinating biography.
Imagine a person who worked steadily, treated people well, gave money to good causes, and died without becoming famous. I might admire that person deeply while finding a more dramatic life more engaging to read about. Interest and admiration aren't automatically the same response.
That's what makes me pause when the essayist moves from the historical figures we find engaging to the qualities we admire most. The most engaging figures are rarely the most morally virtuous, and bravery and creativity commonly distinguish them. But why should that tell us moral virtue isn't among the qualities we admire most?
The final clause brings in another idea: the people whose lives we'd most like to live have the characteristics we admire most. We can accept that claim while still questioning the connection between finding someone engaging and admiring the person's qualities.
What we’re looking for
For the necessary-assumption question, my initial prediction is a bridge between engagement and admiration. The answer will need to show how the essayist gets from what attracts our interest to what we value. Let's track the particular connection the choices supply.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
This points us back to that final clause and fills in the missing step before it. The figures we find most engaging are now the people whose lives we'd most like to live. The passage already tells us that the people whose lives we'd most like to live have the characteristics we admire most.
Put those together: engaging figures connect to desired lives, and desired lives connect to admired characteristics. That is how the essayist uses the engaging figures' bravery and creativity, rather than exceptional moral virtue, to argue about what we admire. My initial reaction focused on engagement versus admiration; A connects those through the extra idea about whose lives we want. Without that connection, the quiet, admirable person's example remains an objection to using fascinating lives as our guide to admired qualities.
- B
Bravery and creativity don't have to interfere with being morally virtuous. They could fit perfectly well with virtue. The argument compares which qualities distinguish the figures who engage us; it doesn't require those qualities to be enemies of moral goodness.
- C
The claim is about the figures we find most engaging, not about how rarely historical figures in general are morally virtuous. There could be many virtuous people in history who simply aren't the figures that most capture our interest. C needlessly expands from the selected group to historical figures generally.
- D
We aren't told where people's standards of admiration come from. Perhaps family, friends, or personal experience shape those standards. The essayist could still try to use our reactions to historical figures as evidence of what we admire. That doesn't require history to be the source of our whole conception of admirability.
- E
Least engaging goes much further. Even if virtue isn't what most engages us, another characteristic could interest us even less. Perhaps someone's bedtime is far duller to us. More basically, the conclusion concerns what we admire most, not a ranking that places moral virtue at the very bottom of what interests us. E isn't needed for the argument.
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