Historian: One traditional childrearing practice in the nineteenth cen

Question

Historian: One traditional childrearing practice in the nineteenth century was to make a child who misbehaved sit alone outside. Anyone passing by would conclude that the child had misbehaved. Nowadays, many child psychologists would disapprove of this practice because they believe that such practices damage the child’s self-esteem and that damage to children’s self-esteem makes them less confident as adults. However, no one disagrees that adults raised under that traditional practice were, on average, as confident as adults not so raised.

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the historian’s statements?

(A) The beliefs of many present-day child psychologists about the consequences of loss of self-esteem are incorrect.

(B) Some of the most confident adults, as well as some of the least confident adults, were raised under the traditional practice in question.

(C) With the traditional childrearing practice, passersby did not always make correct inferences about children’s behavior by observing them outdoors.

(D) The most confident adults are those who developed the highest level of self-esteem in childhood.

(E) If children’s loss of self-esteem makes them less confident as adults, then the traditional childrearing practice in question did not tend to cause significant loss of self-esteem.

StudiosTom · Answer

A) The beliefs of many present-day child psychologists about the consequences of loss of self-esteem are incorrect. -Nothing in the passage makes us to infer that.

(B) Some of the most confident adults, as well as some of the least confident adults, were raised under the traditional practice in question. - Correct  choice IMO.The confident kids would have been raised under the practice but did not experience that firsthand ,that is did not misbehave.

(C) With the traditional childrearing practice, passersby did not always make correct inferences about children’s behavior by observing them outdoors.-Irrelevant

(D) The most confident adults are those who developed the highest level of self-esteem in childhood.-on average they are as confident as others,so eliminated

(E) If children’s loss of self-esteem makes them less confident as adults, then the traditional childrearing practice in question did not tend to cause significant loss of self-esteem.-Negates the psychologists view,eliminate.

prashant6923 · Answer

IMO C.
reasoning:no one disagrees that adults raised under that traditional practice were,  on average , as confident as adults not so raised.

sandman13 · Answer

IMO E:

(A) The beliefs of many present-day child psychologists about the consequences of loss of self-esteem are  incorrect . <- too extreme, they may be correct (we'll come back to this choice later). There might have been other factors which compensated for the lost self-esteem and hence these kids had similar confidence compared to other kids.

(B) Some of the  most  confident adults, as well as some of the  least  confident adults, were raised under the traditional practice in question. <- well, not necessary (MOST and LEAST confident kids were raised under this practice is not known)

(C) With the traditional childrearing practice, passersby did not always make correct inferences about children’s behavior by observing them outdoors. <- we have no way to support this

(D) The  most confident adults  are those who developed the highest level of self-esteem in childhood. <- again, most self-esteem might not necessarily be equal to most confidence

(E) If children’s loss of self-esteem makes them less confident as adults, then the traditional childrearing practice in question did not tend to cause significant loss of self-esteem. <- tone-wise similar; also <- this fits in well with this option. If loss of self-esteem did result in low confidence, but given the conclusion that these children had similar confidence, we can infer they did not lose self-esteem by being punished.

Answer: E

AkshdeepS · Answer

Bunuel, Do we have OE for this question?

Gladiator59 · Answer

Offical Explanation - 
It’s agreed that adults raised under the practice of punishing a child by sitting him alone outdoors showed no less confidence than adults not so raised—this, despite the feeling among child psychologists that that punishment causes damage to self-esteem, which in turn leads to less confidence. Let’s go through the choices as you doubtless did, in order, looking for that which must be true based on this text.
 (A)  goes too far. The author stops short of drawing the categorical conclusion that the child psychologists are wrong.
 (B) —the last sentence talks about average levels of confidence, not (as  (B)  does) the extremes.
 (C)  distorts a most tangential aspect of the paragraph, namely the passersby observing a punished child. That it’s tangential doesn’t make  (C)  wrong; it’s just that the author is concerned with the effects of the punishment, not its meaning to observers.
 (D)  commits the classic error of negating an if thens terms without flipping the terms. That lower self-esteem leads to less confidence doesn’t mean
that high self-esteem leads to high confidence. The correct formulation would be: “NOT less confidence leads to NOT lower self-esteem.”
  (E)  is all that’s left , and its conditional nature makes it easier to accept as true than the others. It distinguishes between the general tendency (of lower self-esteem leading to lower adult confidence)
and the particular behavior, which  (E)  properly cites as an exception to that tendency.  (E)  readily follows from the text.

Oli0139 · Answer

Could someone explain why using the opinion of people, as stated in  E  , is acceptable when making proper inference as required by the question?

Deadpool3 · Answer

Historian: One traditional childrearing practice in the nineteenth century was to make a child who misbehaved sit alone outside. Anyone passing by would conclude that the child had misbehaved. Nowadays, many child psychologists would disapprove of this practice because they believe that such practices damage the child’s self-esteem and that damage to children’s self-esteem makes them less confident as adults.  However, no one disagrees that adults raised under that traditional practice were,  on average , as confident as adults not so raised .

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the historian’s statements?

(A) The  beliefs  of many present-day child psychologists about the consequences of loss of self-esteem are incorrect.  -->The argument says on average confidence level is same, it could be the case that some children become less confident while others children increase their confidence through this practice, balancing the average out.

(B) Some of the most confident adults, as well as some of the least confident adults, were raised under the traditional practice in question.  --> Average is more or less same, we can not infer about extremes/Most or least.
 
(C) With the traditional childrearing practice, passersby did not always make correct inferences about children’s behavior by observing them outdoors.  -->Out of scope

(D) The most confident adults are those who developed the highest level of self-esteem in childhood.  -->Out of scope

(E) If children’s loss of self-esteem makes them less confident as adults, then the traditional childrearing practice in question did not tend to cause significant loss of self-esteem. -->  No significant loss of self esteem at practice level, as averages are same

mayankdgmat · Answer

TP- Traditional practice
LSE- Low self esteem
LC - Low Confidence

TP----->LSE -----> LC

So if TP is not leading to LC then TP should have been leading to LSE.

So answer is  E

unraveled · Answer

Historian: One traditional childrearing practice in the nineteenth century was to make a child who misbehaved sit alone outside. Anyone passing by would conclude that the child had misbehaved. Nowadays, many child psychologists would disapprove of this practice because they believe that such practices damage the child’s self-esteem and that damage to children’s self-esteem makes them less confident as adults.  However, no one disagrees that adults raised under that traditional practice were, on average, as confident as adults not so raised .

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the historian’s statements?

(A) The beliefs of many present-day child psychologists about the consequences of loss of self-esteem are  incorrect . - WRONG. Can't be said in that fashion.

(B) Some of the  most confident adults , as well as some of the  least confident adults , were raised under the traditional practice in question. - WRONG. Two  extremes that is not likely to be true.

(C) With the traditional childrearing practice,  passersby did not always make correct inferences about children’s behavior  by observing them outdoors. - WRONG. Irrelevant.

(D) The  most confident adults  are those who developed the  highest level of self-esteem in childhood . - WRONG. Takes things to extremes that is most likely to be not true.

(E) If children’s loss of self-esteem makes them less confident as adults, then the traditional childrearing practice in question  did not tend to cause significant loss of self-esteem . - CORRECT. Takes care of the passage's claim that self-esteem of children was damage but not an extent where it leads to low confidence as an adult and what is said in the blue text.

Answer E.

Raman109 · Answer

Understanding the argument - 
Historian: One traditional childrearing practice in the nineteenth century was to make a child who misbehaved sit alone outside. - Background info.

Anyone passing by would conclude that the child had misbehaved. - Background info.

Nowadays, many child psychologists would disapprove of this practice because they believe that such practices damage the child’s self-esteem and that damage to children’s self-esteem makes them less confident as adults. - opinion of many child psychologists. Traditional practice --> damages children's self-esteem --> less confident adults.

However, no one disagrees that adults raised under that traditional practice were, on average, as confident as adults not so raised. - Counterpremise.

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from the historian’s statements?

(A) The beliefs of many present-day child psychologists about the consequences of loss of self-esteem are incorrect. - The beliefs are incorrect and are hyperbolic.

(B) Some of the most confident adults, as well as some of the least confident adults, were raised under the traditional practice in question. - The argument just talks about the average. Maybe the most confident were raised under XXX practice, and maybe the least confident were raised under altogether different ZZZ practice. We have no information on what practices were used for these extreme scenarios. Distortion as it plays with the "average" word.

(C) With the traditional childrearing practice, passersby did not always make correct inferences about children’s behavior by observing them outdoors. - out of scope.

(D) The most confident adults are those who developed the highest level of self-esteem in childhood. - we don't know. What we know is that many child psychologists believe that the traditional practice --> damages children's self-esteem --> less confident adults. The "Might be true" category, is wrong, as we can't verify with 100% confidence from the argument.

(E) If children’s loss of self-esteem makes them less confident as adults, then the traditional childrearing practice in question did not tend to cause significant loss of self-esteem. - Yes. Basically, it means the traditional practice is not the cause.

hrishi84 · Answer

(A) The beliefs of many present-day child psychologists about the consequences of loss of self-esteem are incorrect.

This is too strong a statement. The historian does not claim the psychologists are completely incorrect, just that there is no evidence that the traditional practice had the negative effects on confidence that they assume.

(B) Some of the most confident adults, as well as some of the least confident adults, were raised under the traditional practice in question.

This might be true, but it’s not directly supported by the historian’s statements. We don’t have information about the confidence levels of specific individuals, just the average.

(C) With the traditional childrearing practice, passersby did not always make correct inferences about children’s behavior by observing them outdoors.

This is outside the scope of the argument. The historian’s statements do not discuss the accuracy of passersby’s inferences.

(D) The most confident adults are those who developed the highest level of self-esteem in childhood.

This statement is about the relationship between self-esteem and confidence in general, but the historian’s argument specifically concerns the effects of the traditional childrearing practice. This answer is not directly related to the given argument.

(E) If children’s loss of self-esteem makes them less confident as adults, then the traditional childrearing practice in question did not tend to cause significant loss of self-esteem.

This statement can be properly inferred. If the psychologists’ belief about self-esteem leading to adult confidence is true, and if the traditional practice did not result in less confidence in adults, then it follows that this practice did not significantly damage self-esteem.
The correct answer is (E).

Historian: One traditional childrearing practice in the nineteenth cen

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Historian: One traditional childrearing practice in the nineteenth cen

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