People want to be instantly and intuitively liked. Those persons who a

Hello, jn0r!

First, because this is an assumption question, the most important thing to find is the conclusion. In this case, the conclusion comes in the last sentence: "It is imprudent to appear prudent."

Next, try to find what's problematic about the conclusion. Does it introduce new terms? Is it too extreme or definitive? Does it gloss over an intermediate point that needs to be established? I usually find it helpful to figure out how the significant words and phrases in the conclusion connect to the premises. In this case, "imprudent" and "appear prudent" are the significant words. Where in the premises have we discussed anything related to prudence and imprudence?

In this argument, "appear prudent" probably calls to "cautiously gathering and weighing the evidence." And that's a pretty fair connection--by definition, prudence involves caution and careful, deliberate consideration.

The problem comes from the "imprudent" in the conclusion. If we look in the premises for something connected to imprudence, we come up empty--there's nothing there that specifically speaks to a lack of caution or careful consideration. We do have a bit of a negative consequence introduced in the premise, however: people who show prudence in choosing a friend will likely be resented. Of course, being resented is not the same thing as being imprudent--and that's where the assumption comes into play. The job of an assumption is to repair a subtly faulty connection between the premise and the conclusion. It's not necessarily "imprudent" to curry resentment; therefore, we need to establish such a connection to make this conclusion work.


Among these answers, only (E) makes this necessary connection between the questionable term in the conclusion and the closest equivalent in the premise. As to the other answers, the question I usually ask myself is whether the answer helps me to better decide whether the conclusion is valid or not. Usually, this means that a correct answer needs to touch on at least one key term from the conclusion, as (E) does here.

(A) Knowing that people who act spontaneously (that is, not prudently) are well-liked doesn't have any bearing on whether people who act prudently are not well-liked, even though it seems as though one would be a natural consequence of the other. So this doesn't help us to decide whether the conclusion is valid or not.

(B) This answer gives us a definition for "imprudent people," but it doesn't help us to decide whether it's a good idea to "appear prudent." This is a common, particularly effective type of trap answer in CR and RC, one that uses a key term to appear correct but says the wrong thing about that key term.

(C) If anything, the natural consequence of this answer is that it's a good idea to appear at least as prudent as others if you want to evade their resentment, so it runs counter to the conclusion that it's a bad idea to appear prudent. This is bad news: the job of the assumption is to make the conclusion more valid, not less.

(D) This answer, like (B), gives us a sort of definition: if you're intuitive, you'll know instantly whether you like someone. But even knowing that, it's hard to make the kind of value judgment that the conclusion of the argument makes (namely, that it's a bad idea to appear too slow to like someone).

I hope that helps!