Thanks for all of the great replies! It looks like there is still some confusion surrounding this question, so let's try to break it down...
The conclusion is that "attaining an exceptionally high level of self-esteem greatly improves one’s social skills." In other words, attaining an exceptionally high level of self-esteem will CAUSE a great improvement in one's social skills. How does the author arrive at that conclusion?
- 100 volunteers take a psychological questionnaire to measure their self-esteem.
- Each volunteer is also asked to rate his or her own social skills. Note that their self-esteem was MEASURED by the questionnaire while their social skills were rated by the volunteers themselves.
- Based on the results of the questionnaire, the psychologists could break up the 100 volunteers into groups, including those with the highest levels of self-esteem and those with moderate levels of self esteem.
- Now the psychologists could compare the SELF-RATED social skills of those two groups: "the volunteers with the highest levels of self-esteem consistently rated themselves as having much better social skills than did the volunteers with moderate levels."
Based on that evidence, the author concludes that attaining an exceptionally high level of self-esteem would greatly improve one's social skills. Why is this argument vulnerable to criticism?
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A. It fails to adequately address the possibility that many of the volunteers may not have understood what the psychological questionnaire was designed to measure.
All that matters is that the test did in fact measure self-esteem, regardless of whether the volunteers
understood what the questionnaire was designed to measure. Choice (A) can be eliminated.
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B. It takes for granted that the volunteers with the highest levels of self-esteem had better social skills than did the other volunteers, even before the former volunteers had attained their high levels of self-esteem.
The author's line of reasoning does not involve taking this assumption for granted. If anything, the author assumes something closer to the opposite (that those with high self esteem had worse social skills before attaining their high levels of self esteem. Since (B) is inaccurate, it cannot be grounds for criticizing the author's argument and can be eliminated.
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C. It overlooks the possibility that people with very high levels of self-esteem may tend to have a less accurate perception of the strength of their own social skills than do people with moderate levels of self-esteem.
What if volunteers with very high levels of self-esteem do tend to have a less accurate perception of the strength of their own social skills? In that case, the ratings those volunteers gave to describe their own social skills would be inaccurate, and we couldn't be sure which of the two groups (those with high levels of self-esteem and those with moderate levels of self-esteem) actually had better social skills. In other words, the ratings of the volunteers' social skills would not be reliable, so the ratings could not be used as valid evidence to support the author's conclusion. (C) looks pretty good.
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D. It relies on evidence from a group of volunteers that is too small to provide any support for any inferences regarding people in general.
Pay attention to the word choice in the last sentence: "This
suggests that attaining an exceptionally high level of self-esteem greatly improves one’s social skills." The author does not say the evidence
proves or
confirms this conclusion. Thus, the author implicitly acknowledges that it is only a small sample. Regardless, evidence from a small sample can certainly
suggest whether a certain theory is true. In other words, the evidence from the group of 100 volunteers certainly supports the author's conclusion, so (D) is not a valid criticism.
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E. It overlooks the possibility that factors other than level of self-esteem may be of much greater importance in determining the strength of one’s social skills.
The author does not argue that self-esteem is the only factor or even the most important factor affecting the strength of one's social skills. The author simply argues that "attaining an exceptionally high level of self-esteem greatly improves one’s social skills." This argument could still hold even if there were several other factors that had a greater impact on the strength of one's self-esteem. (E) can be eliminated.
Hopefully that adds some clarity!