Sara: But such a role would encourage government to decide which modes of life are truly virtuous; that would be more dangerous than government’s being overprotective of individuals’ rights.
Speaker 1 Summary
Glen argues that the primary role of the law should be to create virtuous citizens. Why? Because focusing on the procedural aspect of law puts too much emphasis on individuals rather than overall societal welfare. (Glen appears to assume that the options are either a procedural focus or a focus on creating virtuous citizens.)
Speaker 2 Summary
Sarah implies the conclusion that the law’s primary focus should not be on creating virtuous citizens. Why? Because that focus would encourage the government to decide what counts as “virtuous,” which Sarah says is a worse alternative than caring too much about individuals. In other words, Sarah thinks that Glen’s conclusion would lead to a worse outcome than the issue Glen wants to solve.
Objective
We need to find a disagreement. Glen and Sarah disagree about whether the law’s primary role should be creating virtuous citizens.
A
citizens can be assumed to be capable of making good choices without governmental interference
Neither speaker talks about whether people are capable of making good choices without governmental interference. The discussion never touches on how the presence or absence of governmental interference changes people’s behavior.
B
virtuousness on the part of citizens is more important than the protection of citizens’ rights
Neither speaker considers the importance of virtuousness on the part of citizens. How citizens behave is actually pretty irrelevant to this discussion, which is about what role the law should prioritize.
C
there is an inherent danger in allowing government to decide what constitutes virtuous behavior among citizens
Sarah would likely agree with this, but Glen never expresses an opinion. Glen only mentions the dangers of government focusing on individual rights, and doesn’t talk about the possible dangers of government focusing on virtue.
D
an emphasis on law’s purely procedural side results in government’s being overprotective of citizens’ rights
Glen agrees with this, but Sarah doesn’t disagree. Sarah’s argument is that the alternative (government being too concerned with virtue) is worse. She never actually contradicts Glen’s claim about overprotecting individual rights.
E
the cultivation of virtue among citizens should be the primary role of law
This is the conclusion of Glen’s argument, meaning Glen agrees. Sarah’s argument, on the other hand, supports the unstated conclusion that this is not the case and that the law should focus on other roles. This is the disagreement.
Summarize Argument
The psychologist concludes that people who are very overconfident are more likely to start businesses than people who aren’t as overconfident. This is because, according to a study, entrepreneurs are more likely than business managers to be overconfident.
Notable Assumptions
The psychologist assumes that overconfidence makes it more likely that someone becomes an entrepreneur, rather than that being an entrepreneur makes it more likely one will be overconfident. The psychologist also assumes that the business managers in questions hadn’t attempted to start businesses and lost confidence as a consequence.
A
The questions asked of the entrepreneurs and business managers included personal, political, and business questions.
We don’t care what kind of questions had been asked. We want to strengthen the relationship between overconfidence and starting a business.
B
At least some of the entrepreneurs surveyed had accurately determined before attempting to start their businesses what the odds were against their attempts being successful.
We don’t care if entrepreneurs had accurately determined their odds. Most people know starting businesses is always a risky decision.
C
Another survey showed that degree of confidence was highly correlated with success in business.
We don’t care. The psychologist never claims that overconfident is what makes entrepreneurs successful.
D
The business managers who were most overconfident were found to have attempted to start businesses in the past.
Overconfident business managers had tried to start businesses in the past, which strengthens the relationship between overconfidence and entrepreneurship. This moreover suggests that entrepreneurship doesn’t itself cause overconfidence.
E
How confident each person surveyed was that his or her answers to the questions asked were correct corresponded closely to that person’s confidence in his or her business acumen.
The psychologist doesn’t say anything about business acumen. We care about the relationship between overconfidence and taking the risk to start a business.
"Surprising" Phenomenon
While heart attacks are most likely to happen on Mondays since people are stressed for the work week, unemployed retirees are also most likely to have heart attacks on Mondays.
Objective
The right answer will be a hypothesis that explains why unemployed retirees suffer heart attacks at higher rates on Mondays than the other days of the week. Either this answer will link unemployed retirees with stressed workers, or else give some other reason why Monday is a particularly likely day for heart attacks.
A
Because they associate Monday with work, retired people are more likely to begin large projects on Mondays.
After a lifetime of starting work on Monday, retired people begin large projects on Monday. This is stressful for them, hence why they too are more likely to suffer heart attacks on Monday than other days of the week.
B
Many retired people take up part-time jobs after they retire from their careers.
Do these part-time jobs start on Monday, too? This doesn’t tell us, so it can’t be right.
C
People seldom change their dietary and other health habits after retirement.
Mondays are conducive to heart attacks because of stress. Diet and health habits don’t factor into the equation, at least not according to the stimulus.
D
Stress is the major factor influencing the risk of heart attack.
We don’t know if retired people are stressed, and we have no reason to believe they’re more stressed on Mondays than other days. This doesn’t help.
E
Unemployed retired people are even more likely to have heart attacks than are people who have jobs.
We need an explanation. This simply gives us a fact that doesn’t clear anything up as to why retirees also suffer relatively more heart attacks on Mondays.