PT153 S3 Q16 ExplanationIf a novelist is popular

Answer choices, explained

1. A

   Out of Scope: not popular novelists9% picked this

   Some novelists who can vividly imagine large numbers of characters with attitudes and personalities completely different from those of

   This paragraph only talks about popular novelists, so any fact about unpopular novelists or popular non-novelists is automatically garbage. We can't contradict something we never talked about.

   9%
2. B

   Novelists vs. Popular Novelists6% picked this

   Some novelists are incapable of empathizing with people whose goals are completely different

   This is compatible with the facts. If it said "some popular novelists ...", then it would be a correct answer. But saying "some novelists" leaves room for the idea that these people incapable of empathizing are unpopular novelists.

   6%
3. C

   Correct62% picked this

   Some people who lack the ability to empathize with those who have goals completely different from their

   Why this is right

   This contradicts our conditional. Contradicting a conditional means the Left side is true but the Right side is not (Trigger, but don't deliver). It is saying that there are people who are popular novelists but aren't capable of empathizing with those who have different goals. Poppycock! We were told that if a novelist is popular, such a writer will be capable of empathizing with people who have different goals.

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

   62%
4. D

   Compatible15% picked this

   No people who have doubts about the value of their own desires are incapable of empathizing with people who have goals that

   This is stronger than anything we could infer, but it's not something we could contradict. To contradict this statement, we would need to know that "some people who have doubts about the values of their own desires are incapable of empathizing with people who have different goals". We didn't hear about any such people. The only people we heard about were people who had doubts about their desires and were capable of empathizing.

   15%
5. E

   Compatible9% picked this

   Most writers who have doubts about the value of what they desire

   To contradict this, we would need to have read that "at most 50% of people who have doubts about the value of their desires are popular novelists." Do we know anything that would let us quantify what share of the self-doubting population is a popular novelist? Of course not. We don't have any quantifiers relating to that.

   9%