LR Question 17 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Advice columnist: Parents should not encourage their children…
QUESTION TYPE: Principle
CONCLUSION: Parents shouldn’t encourage children to value outdoing others.
REASONING: This sort of motivation causes resentment and unhappiness since it’s an achievement that’s difficult to satisfy.
ANALYSIS: This sounds like an if-then statement. We can prephrase this as: “if something causes resentment/unhappiness ➞ don’t encourage children to do it.”
___________
- The correct principle should say what parent’s shouldn’t do, and “the things they do well” is out of scope since it isn’t mentioned in the stimulus.
- Again, the principle should say what parents shouldn’t do. Also, having “at least some desires that are easy to satisfy” is never mentioned in the stimulus so it’s out of scope.
- CORRECT. The trait here is “plac[ing] great value on outdoing others”, which the stimulus says, fosters resentment and makes one less happy.
- Again, we want a principle that says what parents shouldn’t do. “Significant achievements” also makes this wrong since it’s not mentioned in the stimulus.
- This doesn’t talk at all about what parents shouldn’t encourage. Eliminate.
Recap: The question begins with “Advice columnist: Parents should not encourage their children”. It is a Principle question. Learn how to master LSAT Principle questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.
More Resources for Principle Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Principle questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers principle questions.
I see why C is correct, but I’m also curious if it’s also because C is more general, and the others are more specific to parents? Assuming we’d want a principle that isn’t so specific, but curious if that plays a factor here or not.
Hi Krista! C could’ve said parents and been completely fine. Whether it says “one should never” or “parents should never” doesn’t have a bearing on its correctness. As long as the group that the answer choice addresses includes the same group that the stimulus addresses, it is sufficiently “general”.
It is absolutely not a problem for an answer choice to only address parents in this case, because the stimulus also only addresses parents. Since C talks about EVERYONE, that necessarily includes parents. So either is fine.
Hope that helps!