LR Question 20 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Shy adolescents often devote themselves totally to a…
QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption
CONCLUSION: An all-consuming hobby is not a successful strategy to get over loneliness as a teenager.
REASONING: Sometimes shy adolescents can make friends through a hobby. But if they lost interest in the hobby then they might get even lonelier.
ANALYSIS: This argument isn’t quite good. We don’t know what happens once a teenager drops a hobby and gets lonelier. Maybe they go and make new friends in a bit. Having a hobby might have taught them how to meet people.
___________
- Even if adolescents don’t want more friends they may still lose the friends they have if they abandon the hobby.
- CORRECT. If a successful strategy for getting past loneliness can intensity that loneliness then perhaps a hobby can be a successful strategy even though it could make you lonelier.
- It doesn’t matter what adolescents do if they don’t make any friends from a hobby. The strategy has failed in that case.
- This doesn’t have to be true. Perhaps no strategy is successful.
- It doesn’t matter why teenagers start hobbies. The question is: will the hobbies help them make friends?
More Resources for Necessary Assumption Questions
- Negations Article: Learn about negations on the LSAT.
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements.
- Negations Drill: Practice your negation skills.
- 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 Necessary Assumption questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers necessary assumption questions.
I am still confused, because I thought the conclusion is addressing the possibility of losing interest by developing an “all-consuming” hobby ??
The idea is that despite the intention being to reduce the impact of loneliness by developing a hobby, sometimes developing an all consuming hobby can have the opposite effect. The argument isn’t a good one, for the reasons that Graeme mentions, and also because it’s generally unclear why exactly the loneliness is exacerbated.