PrepTest 155, Section 1, Question 9
Essayist: Practical intelligence is the ability to discover(46 more words not shown)
The conclusion of the essayist's(13 more words not shown)
- AA being cannot(8 more words not shown)
- BSkills are acquired(5 more words not shown)
- CThe best way(12 more words not shown)
- DA being with(15 more words not shown)
- EIf a being(13 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
If everything you want is handed to you immediately, when would you need to work out how to get it? That's the essayist's basic thought. Practical intelligence means figuring out means to ends: working out a way to accomplish what you want. Calling it a skill that doesn't develop on its own means it has to be acquired. It doesn't mean the skill is impossible to learn or that you're simply born with it.
The final claim initially sounds reasonable: a being that never faces an unmet want won't develop this skill. But the question asks us to make that conclusion follow, so we need to find the step the essayist has left unstated. Why couldn't the being learn a skill it never actually needed?
What we’re looking for
We need a rule connecting acquisition with need. If skills are acquired only when needed, a being given everything immediately has no need to discover ways of obtaining it and therefore cannot acquire that practical skill.
Working the answers
- A
Other people's help isn't the missing connection. This being may be surrounded by helpful people who supply everything it wants. Saying that learning requires help doesn't establish that someone whose wants are immediately met cannot learn. We need a reason the absence of unmet wants prevents acquiring the skill.
- BCorrect
This makes need a requirement for acquiring a skill. The being never needs to figure out a means to an end because every desired end is immediately supplied. Since practical intelligence is that skill, B rules out acquiring it in the situation described. It supplies the link from having no need for the skill to never developing it.
- C
The best way isn't the only way. Even if being deprived of something is the best way to learn how to acquire it, someone who isn't deprived could still learn another way. The conclusion says this being could never acquire practical intelligence. A claim about the best learning method doesn't establish that impossibility.
- D
This starts with a being that already has practical intelligence and describes how it gets what it wants. Our question is whether the being in the passage can ever acquire practical intelligence. D gives us no rule showing that immediate satisfaction of its wants prevents learning the skill. We shouldn't confuse a claim about using an existing ability with a claim about acquiring it.
- E
Read deprived carefully. E concerns a being that is always deprived of what it wants. The passage concerns a being that is never deprived and always gets what it wants immediately. The shared vocabulary can hide that opposite condition. A rule about constant deprivation doesn't establish the conclusion about constant satisfaction.
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