Logical Reasoning

PT159 · S1 · Q10 A recent study found that most individuals believe

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A recent study found that most individuals believe that they sleep less than most other people.

Facts

pivot tension (however)

Most ppl think they sleep less than most other people. but it's impossible for most ppl to sleep less than most people.

Evaluate

When we're doing MBT or Most Supported (like this one) and we see two claims put in tension with each other via a Pivot word, the correct answer almost always addresses that tension.

If we hear, , it seems to force us to believe that some of them must be wrong.

It's impossible for them to all be correct, so some of the people who think they sleep less than most people don't actually sleep less than most people.

Goal

Let's look for the most provable answer. It will probably address the Pivot tension by conveying that .

10.

Which one of the following most logically completes the argument?

  1. some people believe things that

    Too Strong (even in principle)

    We know that some people think "I sleep less than most other people" and are wrong about that belief. But can we say that "I sleep less than most other people" can't possibly be true, even in principle? No. That could definitely be a true claim for some people, so it could in principle be true. Saying it isn't actually true is different from saying it couldn't even in principle be true. If I were to believe that "most people sleep less than most other people", then I would be guilty of believing something that cannot even in principle be true. It's a self-contradictory claim.

    5% picked this

  2. most people are not aware

    Too Strong (most)

    We know that some of these people who think they sleep less than most others are wrong, but we can't prove that most of them are wrong. Also, for them to be wrong, it doesn't have to be because they're unaware of how much they sleep. They might be unaware of how much most other people sleep.

    3% picked this

  3. most people underestimate how much

    Too Strong (most)

    We know that some of these people who think they sleep less than most others are wrong, but we can't prove that most of them are wrong. This otherwise fits the gist of the paragraph. If you're thinking, "Compared to most other people, I get way less sleep" and you're wrong, then you are underestimating how much sleep you get in relation to others. In case numbers would help, pretend there are 100 people, and most of them (51 of them) get at least 7 hrs of sleep per night. 49 of them get 6 hrs or less of sleep per night. Let's say that all 49 of those people (correctly) believe "I get less sleep than most". If we grab two people from the 7+ hr group and say that they also believe "I get less sleep than most", then we'd have 51 people believing they get less sleep than most. So most of our population believes they get less sleep than most. But only 2 of them are actually wrong. Only 2 of them are underestimating how much sleep they get in comparison to others, not most of them, as this answer choice says.

    26% picked this

  4. most people think that they

    Out of Scope (should)

    We'd be very skeptical of this answer from the strength of MOST, but then we can definitely get rid of it when we see it's talking about how much sleep they should get. That concept is not discussed at all in the stimulus.

    2% picked this

  5. Correct

    some people incorrectly believe that

    Why this is right

    If we know that most people believe that they are X, but it's impossible for X to be true of most people, then that means that at least some of them have an incorrect belief. So at least some people incorrectly believe they sleep less than most other people.

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

    65% picked this

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