Logical Reasoning

PT118 · S4 · Q16 People are not happy unless

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People are not happy unless they feel that they are needed by others.

Statements

conditionals (only = right, unless = "if not")

people don't feel → people are not happy needed by others

quantifiers (most / almost everyone) causal (because)

knowing your job don't feel needed can be done by ⇢ other than family 1000s of people & friends

Evaluate

This one is kind of a mess to break down technically, because there's causality, conditional logic, and quantifiers. So let's get more conversational with our understanding.

Usually when we see a conditional rule in Inference, they want us to chain it to another conditional or apply it to some specific fact. Both of the first two claims are talking about Indispensability / Feeling Needed. Overlapping concepts point us towards possible inferences.

Since people don't feel happy if they don't feel needed, and since they only ever feel needed within their group of family / friends, it means that they don't feel happy outside their sphere of family and friends.

The 3rd claim provides a causal relationship between whether or not we feel needed and whether or not we think we're easily replaceable.

Goal

Let's find a safely worded answer making use of our knowledge:

Most people feel replaceable at work, so they don't feel needed, so they don't feel happy. (Within the sphere of family / friends, they may feel needed, so they may feel happy)

16.

The statements above most strongly support which one of the following?

  1. People who realize that others

    Too Strong: can't achieve any

    It's way too strong to say that people who feel replaceable at work can't achieve any happiness in their lives. This paragraph left plenty of room for such people to feel needed within their circle of family and friends, and thus room for them to achieve some happiness.

    4% picked this

  2. The nature of modern society

    Out of Scope: undermines importance

    The passage doesn't say anything about modern society having a causal relationship on how important family life is to happiness. If anything, it sounds like "since most people can't feel needed/happy at their jobs, family and friends are more important than ever when it comes to happiness".

    2% picked this

  3. Most people in modern society

    Too Strong: most are happy

    We know most people aren't happy in their professional lives. We have no way to support that most people are happy in their personal lives. In fact, we have no way at all to prove that someone is happy. We only have a rule that allows us to prove that someone is NOT happy. "If they don't feel needed, they won't feel happy" That doesn't mean that, "if you do feel needed, you will feel happy" (that's an illegal negation). And even if we knew that, this answer would also require us knowing that most people feel needed in their private lives (we know it's possible to feel needed in your private life, but we don't know that most people do feel needed).

    18% picked this

  4. A majority of people in

    Out of Scope: appreciate jobs

    Nothing in the passage talks about whether or not people appreciate having their jobs. Perhaps LSAC was trying to fool people who translated that last claim into their brains as, "most people don't feel appreciated at their jobs".

    1% picked this

  5. Correct

    Fewer than a majority of

    Why this is right

    This is saying that most people in modern society can't be happy outside their sphere of family / friends, which we can definitely derive from the paragraph. The paragraph says that "in modern society, most people only feel needed within the sphere of family and friends". And it says that "in order to be happy you have to feel needed". So we can combine those to derive that "in modern society, most people can only feel happy within their sphere of family and friends". Most A's are B is the same as Few A's are ~B. Thus can derive that, "in modern society, few people can feel happy outside their sphere of family and friends".

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

    74% picked this

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