LR Question 22 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Any writer whose purpose is personal expression…
QUESTION TYPE: Sufficient Assumption
CONCLUSION: A poetry reader can enjoy a poem even if they don’t precisely understand the poet’s meaning.
REASONING: Poets ➞ Personal expression ➞ ambiguous words
ANALYSIS: The reasoning tells us that all poets use ambiguous expressions. That means that it is impossible to precisely figure out their meaning. But the argument doesn’t connect the premises to its conclusion.
The correct answer tells us that readers can still enjoy poems despite that ambiguity.
___________
- It doesn’t matter whether the readers try to understand words. It only matters if they can enjoy the poem even if they don’t understand the precise meaning.
- We don’t care about what writers think. The conclusion is about whether readers can enjoy poetry.
- CORRECT. Everyone who reads ambiguous poets can still enjoy their work even if they don’t get the precise meaning.
- “Most” isn’t good enough. The conclusion says “no” poetry reader will fail to enjoy the poems.
- That’s great for those readers. But it doesn’t tell us if readers who don’t have a precise understanding can still enjoy the poems.
More Resources for Sufficient Assumption Questions
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Intro to Conditional Reasoning: Learn conditional reasoning basics.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Sufficient Assumption questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers sufficient assumption questions.
In the stimulus, the author uses “writer” and “poet”. I interpreted this to mean that the two things were separate. I did get to the correct answer, but my understanding of the stimulus was not correct. Could you kindly explain the reasoning a little bit more for me? Thank you.
A poet is a writer by definition. So not every write is a poet, but every poet is a writer and the two things aren’t wholly separate. Hope that helps.
Hi Graeme,
When it says ‘Any writer whose purpose is personal expression sometimes uses words ambiguously’ I thought it translates to [Writers purpose personal expression–sometimes–> uses words ambiguously].
Apparently, it translates to [Writers purpose personal expression —-> uses words ambiguously]
Can someone explain to me why I’m wrong? I thought “sometimes” means “some.”
You could interpret either way really. I think here the emphasis makes it easier to interpret as a conditional statement. As in, it is always true that such a writer will sometimes be ambiguous.
But you could also say: words written by such a writer SOME ambiguous
Ultimately it amounts to the same thing. The diagrams are just a way of conveying the English.