Q25 - Literary critic: A folktale is a traditional story

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Sufficient Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Folktales have deeper meaning.
Evidence: Folktales -- passed along for generations, receives added meaning from storyteller, provides great insights into the wisdom of the culture.

Answer Anticipation:
We basically need a rule that takes us from one of the three things we know about folktales and takes us to the New Guy wording of "has deeper meaning".
We could see
"If passed along for generations, has deeper meaning",
"If each storyteller adds his/her own something, has deeper meaning",
or
"If provides great insight into wisdom of culture, has deeper meaning".

This last one is by far the most likely because it's the end of the chain of thinking in the Evidence, and because "insight into wisdom of culture" is the closest synonym for "has deeper meaning".

Correct Answer:
B

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Tempting! But this says "CAN provide" meaning. Get that weak stuff out of here. This is Sufficient Assumption, where we must 100% PROVE the conclusion.

(B) Yes! "if provides insight into wisdom of culture, then deeply meaningful in some way (doesn't lack deeper meaning)."

(C) Stop reading with "not every". Get that wishy-washy out of here. This is Suff Assump.

(D) The classic Reversal trap. We never want to hear our rule phrased, "If [conclusion idea], then [premise idea]." We are fine, however, with contrapositive wording, which would be "If NOT[conclusion idea], then NOT[premise idea]."

(E) Stop reading with "does not necessarily". Get that weak stuff out of here.

Takeaway/Pattern: I feel like Serge Ibaka or Dikembe Mutumbo (basketball players, if you're lost) would be wagging their fingers "no, no, no" as they quickly reject (A), (C), and (E). It would have been easy to initially overlook the "CAN provide" dealbreaker in (A), but once we were down to (A) vs. (B), we would read more tightly and hopefully notice it.

#officialexplanation