Most people are indignant at the suggestion

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TopicsMain Conclusion

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Stimulus

Most people are indignant at the suggestion that they are not reliable authorities about their real wants. Such self-knowledge, however, is not the easiest kind of knowledge to acquire. Indeed, acquiring it often requires hard and even potentially risky work. To avoid they want what society says they should want.

What this question is testing

Main Conclusion

Your task

Break the argument into its conclusion and evidence, then do exactly what the question stem asks with that structure.

Common trap

Answers that sound relevant to the topic but don't connect to the argument's actual reasoning.

Winning move

Predict what a right answer must do, then test each choice against the conclusion-evidence gap.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question

10.

The main point of the argument

Answer choices

Premise15% picked this
acquiring self-knowledge can be
Why can it be risky? The argument never said. Since it's not Supported, it's not a Conclusion.
15%
Never Stated: not as desirable7% picked this
knowledge of what one really wants is not as desirable as it is usually
The author never brings up "how desirable people usually think knowing your own wants will be", nor does she say, "But, no! It's actually less desirable than we think".
7%
Never Stated Too Strong: cannot want2% picked this
people cannot really want what they
Nothing in this argument is as strong as "cannot want" what they should want.
2%
Never Stated2% picked this
people usually avoid making difficult
It's never stated or implied that people usually avoid tough decisions.
2%
Correct75% picked this
people are not necessarily reliable authorities about what they
Why this is right
This is a little different from what we identified as the Conclusion, but part of that relates to the twist that this is a Main Point (not Main Conclusion) question stem. Main Point stems are very rare, but the correct answer sometimes goes beyond an explicit conclusion. It might give us an implied conclusion or an answer that packages together the conclusion and premise. At any rate, this answer is an implied conclusion set up by the "many people don't like to think that X is true. However .... " structure. That sort of structure implies that the author is arguing that X is true. In this argument, many people don't like to think "they're not reliable authorities on what they want. However ... ", so the author is implicitly arguing that "they're not reliable authorities on what they want." Why should we believe people aren't necessarily authorities on what they want (i.e. is there Support)? - it's hard knowledge to acquire a sense of what you really want - it can be risky - people often choose otherwise to just adopt the standards of society says they should want.
Skill tested: Main Conclusion · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
75%

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