CAT Critical Reasoning Practice question with Solution 61

Since both the willingness to make fun of oneself and the willingness to allow others to do so are evidence of a self-confident person, we can infer that people who aren't selfconfident aren't likely to enjoy being made fun of, either by themselves or by others. (A) implies that no one who lacks self-confidence will enjoy being made fun of, which may at first seem like a stronger statement than the argument can definitely support. However, the phrase “the surest mark” is meant to indicate that telling funny stories or jokes about oneself is tantamount to being self- confident; in other words, if you tell funny stories or jokes about yourself, then you are self-confident. (A) is the contrapositive of this. Even if you don’t see eye to eye with this logic, as some may not, (A) is still the best of the bunch, and very much in line with the gist of the argument.

(B) Beyond the scope—the passage talks about other people making fun of self-confident people, but says nothing about the reverse scenario.

(C) and (E) are also beyond the scope. There’s no way for us to infer the reason behind the stated correlation (C); that is, why self-confident people put themselves down. And the reason why anyone tells jokes about other people in their presence (what choice (E) discusses) is never discussed.

(D) We have no idea who “most people” are, or what they would prefer.