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 OriginalJane
  • Posts: 6
  • Joined: Feb 26, 2015
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#18522
Hi Dave,

Thanks for all of your help responding to my questions so far.

For Q #15, I understand why D is correct but I just want to clarify why C is wrong. Is C a mistaken reversal? Or, is it because the stimulus doesn't actually mention anything about people's will per se?

Thanks,

Amanda
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 Dave Killoran
PowerScore Staff
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#18524
Hi Amanda,

Thanks for the question. Yes, there's definitely a reversal there, because the stimulus says that to rapidly emerge, you need new investments, and (C) says that if you make new investments, then you will rapidly emerge. However, in Justify questions, sometimes you actually need a Mistaken Reversal to make the argument work (you are just looking for whatever fills the missing gap; sometimes that will be what would otherwise appear to be a logical error). That isn't the case here, however. Instead, we needed to connect confidence and the collective/individual goals, and (C) doesn't help is do that since it doesn't address the confidence part.

A fast analysis would say that both (C) and (D) are conditional (which we need to link the stimulus pieces together), but (C) doesn't have the right pieces whereas (D) does.

Last note: the "people are willing" portion doesn't bother me because in Justify questions I'm looking to add in something new that links everything. That can, at times, lead to situations where they use language that isn't exactly the same as what you saw in the stimulus. So, that isn't the part that kills (C); it's what (C) is missing/not doing that is the issue.

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!
 srcline@noctrl.edu
  • Posts: 243
  • Joined: Oct 16, 2015
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#32778
Hello

So wanted to check my reasoning on this. b/c I keep missing these Justify questions.

Conclusion: countries that put collective goals before individuals goals can't emerge quickly from an economic recession.
So the new element here is "goals".

Premise: rapid emergence from econ. recession :arrow: substantial investment in that country's economy
Premise 2: any new investment :arrow: (precondition =necessary condition right?) peoples confidence

How would you link these conditional statements....... I tried using the Justify formula but I'm not seeing how C doesn't fill the gap.....

Thankyou
Sarah
 Adam Tyson
PowerScore Staff
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#32783
Your premise diagrams look good, Sarah, so now link those two up through the common element of "investment", like this (and I am abbreviating the terms here):

Emerge :arrow: Invest :arrow: Confidence

The conclusion gives us a new conditional claim, that when you put collective goals first, you don't get that rapid emergence. The new term is not just "goals", but is "put(ting) collective goals before individual goals". Simplified, that looks like this:

Collective :arrow: Emerge

In order to justify (prove) that conclusion, we need Collective (that is, putting collective goals ahead of individual goals) to be sufficient for something that will get us to Emerge. We can do that through the contrapositive of the original chain, which would be:

Confidence :arrow: Invest :arrow: Emerge

Answer D gets us there by making Collective sufficient for Confidence - from there, just follow the contrapositive chain all the way to Emerge and your conclusion is justified!

Collective :arrow:Confidence :arrow: Invest :arrow: Emerge

Answer C makes no such connection. So what if putting individual goals first and being willing to invest will lead to rapid emergence? How does that prove that putting collective goals first won't? What if people in countries that put collective goals first also have confidence and invest? If you want to justify a conclusion about putting collective goals first, you need to talk about putting collective goals first.

Nice job diagramming the premises! Just be sure to carry that through all the way to find what is missing from the diagram to link up the conclusion.

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