Critic: As modern methods of communication and transportation have continued to improve, the pace of life today has ...

Naz on August 15, 2014

This is an Illustration question. These are very rare questions, making up only 3.4% of Logical Reasoning questions. You were right to wonder if it was a Must Be True question or a Principle question; Illustration questions are very similar to Must Be True questions, and are, in fact, a type of Must Be True question, and one type of Illustration question is also a type of Principle question, e.g. when you are given a principle in the Illustration question, which is not the case here. Either way, you were close to the mark with your guesses.

The basic idea of an Illustration questions is that in the stimulus you are going to encounter a principle, examples, cases, etc. You will be looking for the answer choice that best illustrates what you encountered in the passage--thus, Illustration questions are a type of Must Be True questions.

Answer choice (A) states: "The fast pace of modern life has made it difficult for people to achieve their goals."

The stimulus tells us that the speed of life, resulting from modern methods of communication and transportation continuing to improve, has created feelings of impermanence and instability, making people FEEL as though they never have enough time to achieve what they want or what they think they want.

The issue with answer choice (A) is that the passage never states that this fast paced quality of modern life actually makes it difficult for people to achieve their goals, merely that it makes people FEEL AS THOUGH they don't have enough time to achieve their goals. There's a big difference.

Hope that clears things up! Please let us know if you have any other questions.

mamie on November 21, 2019

Hi Naz, I was stuck between C and C, but ultimately chose C. I a, not entirely sure though why D is not right, could you please explain it? Thanks!

Neela on November 27, 2019

I selected C, but I am still a little confused why D is wrong. Would you mind explaining?