Attaining self control is the ultimate challenge for anyone.

Question

Attaining self control is the ultimate challenge for anyone. One who controls his mind controls everything else.The first and the most elusive step in accomplishing this objective is the recognition of its truth.The pressures and temptations of the world are generally strong enough to blind one to this truth though a very few manage to see through them.

Which one of the following can be inferred from the above passage?

A. Control over mind is self sustaining after a certain point
B. Control of mind is not difficult for everyone
C. Attempting self control is a self defeating objective
D. Control over everything is the ultimate challenge for anyone
E. Pressures and temptations of the world are numerous

Marcab · Answer

Indeed a tough one.
My choice shall be B.
An OE and source shall be appreciated.

umeshpatil · Answer

Hello Marcab,

Yes. I also find this question little tougher.
My few couple of questions are taken from here: https://www.sravna.com/gmat_ques.php

I am looking for CR practice question. It will be great help if you suggest some question bank

Marcab · Answer

There are questions available at CR directory on GMAT Club itself, questions that are sourced from various test prep companies. Thorough study of those questions in addition to the OG 12/13 will definitely suffice anyone's needs.

Carcass · Answer

OE is possible ??

A is really weird as response

Marcab · Answer

There is a better idea: stick with the official ones.

SVaidyaraman · Answer

The objective here is attaining self control and the truth of this objective or purpose of self control is to control everything.The clue to answering this question is the underlined words in the following sentence: The first and the  most elusive step  in accomplishing this objective is the recognition of its truth. That means once the first hurdle is crossed which is recognizing that by self control you can control everything, the other hurdles to self control can definitely be crossed. That is, the first step is responsible for making the subsequent steps happen and therefore the process sustains itself.

As an elaboration consider that you consider that self control is very important and needs to be attained. That is the most difficult step. Once you clear that you take steps to control your mind since you recognize its importance and you can achieve the objective because the subsequent steps are less difficult to achieve. It is a complicated way of saying that once you consider an objective important and needs to be achieved, that being the most difficult task in the accomplishment of the objective, the objective will be achieved by the recognition of its importance.

Marcab · Answer

Hii Sri. 
Can you please elaborate the above quote of yours. The "self-sustain" is quite a heavy word, but I am not able to infer it from the passage.
Thanks in advance.

SVaidyaraman · Answer

Dear Marcab,

When a process is self sustaining, the steps in the process itself is able to sustain the process and the process is brought to completion. In this case the first step in the process of attaining self control is believing that attaining self control is important because it helps you to control everything else which is what is given in the passage. Does this step make the process self sustaining? or in other words does this step aid the other steps?, and is the process finally brought to completion? It does because of the words that this step  is the most elusive  . Normally when you have an objective and work towards it there are a number of steps that may be needed to complete the objective. Just believing in your goal is not sufficient. But in this case believing is the most difficult part. So once you want to attain self control and believe in the importance of self control that will see you through the whole process.

"Self sustaining" may be high sounding but what it really means is that a step(s) of the process aids other steps.

Carcass · Answer

Me too

inference questions are only something saying in other words. that's it

here i do not see any clue that suggests self sustainable.........

Carcass · Answer

guy there is a bunch of sources out there veritas question bank, jumbo test, f1 gmat ...........now I'll made a post with the best resource on the web taken from my bookmarks coming soon......... :wink:

Marcab · Answer

Yeah...point sounds interesting.+1 to you.
Can you please explain why B is incorrect? I chose B because in the stimulus it is mentioned at the end that there are very few who can see through the truth, thus thereby recognize the truth and hence therefore control everything else.
Also this question doesn't seems even below than the 730 level.

SVaidyaraman · Answer

B is not correct because, a few recognize the truth but it doesn't follow it is not difficult for them to attain self control. The first sentence exactly says this point. That it is challenging for anyone.

gauravkaushik8591 · Answer

But i think there's difference between a NECESSARY condition and SUFFICIENT condition. What you've mentioned here is a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition. There are 100 steps of which the 1st one is most elusive. Doesn't mean that the first one is sufficient. I hope I didn't get wrong here.

Mahmud6 · Answer

How does recognizing truth necessarily mean that other hurdles to self control can definitely be crossed? Everyone knows the truth of attaining self control, but is everyone able to attain self control?

Posted from my mobile device

SVaidyaraman · Answer

There is a difference between understanding something and realization of it. By understanding something one is not guaranteed to put it faithfully into practice but in the case of realization one is able to do that.

The topic talks about pressures and temptations of the world blinding almost everybody to the recognition of the truth. So it does not talk about just understanding but realization. Since by realization one is able to put ones thoughts into practice, we can say that what is said in choice A is true.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Attaining self control is the ultimate challenge for anyone.

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