Frustration

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heshamelaziry: Legendary Member; Posts: 869; Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2009 3:49 pmFollowed by: 3 members; Location: California; Thanked: 13 times

by heshamelaziry » Thu Oct 22, 2009 10:33 pm

Frustration in response to insults is unreasonable, for insults are merely assertions that someone has undesirable characteristics. If such an assertion is false, the insulted party ought to pity the ignorance prompting the insult. If it is true, the insulted party should be thankful for such useful information.

Which of the following, if assumed, enables the argument's conclusion to be properly drawn?

Actions prompted by ignorance warrant negative reactions.

Frustration is a reasonable response to useful information.

Frustration is an unreasonable response to any action that should prompt pity or gratitude.

Gratitude and pity are reasonable responses to some forms of hostile or insensitive behavior.

Pity is the only reasonable reaction to people with undesirable characteristics.

OA C

Some body tell me that this is a bad constructed question, otherwise i will burn myself at the stake.

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Critical Reasoning | Thu Oct 22, 2009 10:33 pm

Ludacrispat26: Master | Next Rank: 500 Posts; Posts: 113; Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2009 10:51 am; Thanked: 10 times; GMAT Score:690

Re: Frustration

by Ludacrispat26 » Thu Oct 22, 2009 10:42 pm

heshamelaziry wrote:Frustration in response to insults is unreasonable, for insults are merely assertions that someone has undesirable characteristics. If such an assertion is false, the insulted party ought to pity the ignorance prompting the insult. If it is true, the insulted party should be thankful for such useful information.

Which of the following, if assumed, enables the argument's conclusion to be properly drawn?

Actions prompted by ignorance warrant negative reactions.

Frustration is a reasonable response to useful information.

Frustration is an unreasonable response to any action that should prompt pity or gratitude.

Gratitude and pity are reasonable responses to some forms of hostile or insensitive behavior.

Pity is the only reasonable reaction to people with undesirable characteristics.

OA C

Some body tell me that this is a bad constructed question, otherwise i will burn myself at the stake.

I can't attest to the quality of the question, but I can tell you that the answer is clearly C. If C is true, then the conclusion is valid.

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heshamelaziry: Legendary Member; Posts: 869; Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2009 3:49 pmFollowed by: 3 members; Location: California; Thanked: 13 times

Re: Frustration

by heshamelaziry » Thu Oct 22, 2009 10:48 pm

Ludacrispat26 wrote:
heshamelaziry wrote:Frustration in response to insults is unreasonable, for insults are merely assertions that someone has undesirable characteristics. If such an assertion is false, the insulted party ought to pity the ignorance prompting the insult. If it is true, the insulted party should be thankful for such useful information.

Which of the following, if assumed, enables the argument's conclusion to be properly drawn?

Actions prompted by ignorance warrant negative reactions.

Frustration is a reasonable response to useful information.

Frustration is an unreasonable response to any action that should prompt pity or gratitude.

Gratitude and pity are reasonable responses to some forms of hostile or insensitive behavior.

Pity is the only reasonable reaction to people with undesirable characteristics.

OA C

Some body tell me that this is a bad constructed question, otherwise i will burn myself at the stake.

I can't attest to the quality of the question, but I can tell you that the answer is clearly C. If C is true, then the conclusion is valid.

Frustration is an unreasonable response to any action. How could any action be the right answer ? Also, I do not see anything wrong with answer D ?!!!

Let me borrow your brain cells.

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Testluv: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1302; Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 2:13 pmFollowed by: 164 members; Location: Toronto; Thanked: 539 times; GMAT Score:800

by Testluv » Thu Oct 22, 2009 11:45 pm

Hi heshamelaziry,

actually this is a perfectly constructed question...for the LSAT.

Notice this question is not asking you to find a necessary assumption (it does not ask you to find an assumption on which the argument "depends" or "relies".)

Instead, it is asking you for an assumption which, if made, would enable the conclusion to be drawn. This is called a sufficient assumption question.

You do have a very small chance of getting one on the GMAT but, if you do, the passage won't be nearly as abstract as this.

This is an LSAT staple formal logic abstract kind of sufficient assumption question. Here's how you would solve it (if you were worried about studying the LSAT.)

The argument's conclusion is that frustration is an unreasonable response to an insult. The evidence is that an insult should only elicit pity (if the assertion is false) or gratitude (if the assertion is true).

Remember, the author must prove every idea in the conclusion. What ideas are common to both conclusion and evidence?...the idea of insult.
And what is the idea in the conclusion that does not make an appearnce in the evidence?...that frustration is an unreasonable response.
Finally, what idea is in the evidence that is not in the conclusion?...pity and gratitude

The assumption must bridge the gap between those two ideas that are differentially present in conclusion and evidence: "frustration is an unreasonable response" in the conclusion and "pity and gratitude" in the evidence.

Choice C is the only one that does that.

Notice you could have also just selected the choice that had the greatest number of ideas shared with the passage without introducing new ideas.

Finally, to actually to solve this one "properly" you would require the following skills: the ability to translate english sentences into conditional statements, the ability to contrapose individual statements, and the ability to connect these conditional statements.

Kaplan Teacher in Toronto

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heshamelaziry: Legendary Member; Posts: 869; Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2009 3:49 pmFollowed by: 3 members; Location: California; Thanked: 13 times

by heshamelaziry » Fri Oct 23, 2009 12:15 am

Testluv wrote:Hi heshamelaziry,

actually this is a perfectly constructed question...for the LSAT.

Notice this question is not asking you to find a necessary assumption (it does not ask you to find an assumption on which the argument "depends" or "relies".)

Instead, it is asking you for an assumption which, if made, would enable the conclusion to be drawn. This is called a sufficient assumption question.

You do have a very small chance of getting one on the GMAT but, if you do, the passage won't be nearly as abstract as this.

This is an LSAT staple formal logic abstract kind of sufficient assumption question. Here's how you would solve it (if you were worried about studying the LSAT.)

The argument's conclusion is that frustration is an unreasonable response to an insult. The evidence is that an insult should only elicit pity (if the assertion is false) or gratitude (if the assertion is true).

Remember, the author must prove every idea in the conclusion. What ideas are common to both conclusion and evidence?...the idea of insult.
And what is the idea in the conclusion that does not make an appearnce in the evidence?...that frustration is an unreasonable response.
Finally, what idea is in the evidence that is not in the conclusion?...pity and gratitude

The assumption must bridge the gap between those two ideas that are differentially present in conclusion and evidence: "frustration is an unreasonable response" in the conclusion and "pity and gratitude" in the evidence.

Choice C is the only one that does that.

Notice you could have also just selected the choice that had the greatest number of ideas shared with the passage without introducing new ideas.

Finally, to actually to solve this one "properly" you would require the following skills: the ability to translate english sentences into conditional statements, the ability to contrapose individual statements, and the ability to connect these conditional statements.

Thank you very much for your help; i will not burn myself since this is LSAT

By the way, this is one of few toughest LSAT questions I have come across.

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Testluv: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 1302; Joined: Mon Oct 19, 2009 2:13 pmFollowed by: 164 members; Location: Toronto; Thanked: 539 times; GMAT Score:800

by Testluv » Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:20 am

Hey, no problem! This is indeed a fairly tough LSAT question.

Kaplan Teacher in Toronto

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