Logical Reasoning

PT114 · S1 · Q7 Because people are generally better

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Because people are generally better at detecting mistakes in others’ work than in their own, a prudent principle is that one should always have one’s own work checked by someone else.

Principle

Since it's easier for you to see mistakes in other people's work than in your own, it's a good idea to have your work checked by someone else.

Evaluate / Goal

This isn't quite a conditional principle, but we still want to look for a scenario that seems to apply to the first half and then deliver the second half.

i.e. we want a situation where it would be easier for you to see what's wrong with someone else's than with yours, and so you ask someone else to check yours out.

7.

Which one of the following provides the best illustration of the principle above?

  1. The best elementary school math

    Bad Match

    This doesn't have any element of seeing errors in other's work vs. your own.

    1% picked this

  2. One must make a special

    Bad Match

    This doesn't have any element of seeing errors in other's work vs. your own.

    2% picked this

  3. Juries composed of legal novices,

    Weak Match

    This does offer a distinction between two situations and says who would be better to judge the situation. Legal novices would be better at judging the goodness of a legal argument than would other lawyers, so we should compose juries with legal novices rather than lawyers. But the relationship between legal novices and lawyers is one between "naive, inexperienced, not jaded" and "too familiar, too experienced, too jaded to the legal profession". It's not a strong match for "judging yourself vs. judging others". I can see fighting for this answer because novices vs lawyers is like "fresh eyes vs. stale familiarity", and having someone else see your work to look for mistakes is kind of like preferring their fresh eyes to your stale familiarity. But I'm working too hard to make that connection, when a different available answer doesn't make me work that hard. And the correct answer's advice is more similar to the original principle's advice than this answer choice's advice is. This answer choice's advice introduces a brand new concept of "how we impanel juries".

    5% picked this

  4. Correct

    People should always have their

    Why this is right

    This offers a superiority principle that is similar to the distinction in the original between judging your own work and judging someone else's. When we proofread something we wrote, we know in advance what we meant to write, so we are worse at spotting typos than would be someone who doesn't know what's about to be said. Thus, this situation replicates the "we're not as good at judging our own work as someone else would be". And the conclusion part is a great language match: People should always have their writing proofread by someone else is a great match for One should always have one's own work checked by someone else If anything, the match is TOO good. This is the only Parallel type question I've ever seen in LR where the correct answer is so similar in topic and feel to the original.

    Skill tested: Principle-Conform · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    92% picked this

  5. Two people going out for

    Bad Match

    This doesn't show that you're better at judging someone else's work than your own. It just suggests that you're more likely to try something new if someone else picks for you rather than you picking yourself. And there's no advice offered like, "a good principle is that one should always let someone else order for them". It's expressed in a more hypothetical way -- "if you do it, you'll have a more enjoyable meal"

    1% picked this

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