Q14 - The economies of a number of European...

[Shiggins]

I narrowed the choices down to B and D and chose D. I was struggling between the "any nation" in choice B and "ONLY nations. I feel that D is wrong bc it limits the type of nation that should help. If someone could help clear this up, much appreciated.

[bbirdwell]

Here's the logic:

Germany is the only neighbor with resources --> Germany should help.

We want an answer choice that starts with the given premise and GUARANTEES the conclusion. Probably something broad, like "Anytime a country has the resources to help, it should."

(A) Eliminate. This says "obligation to help --> only helper" Not a good match.

(B) "Only one that can help --> should help" This is a good match! Leave it.

(C) "Can afford just a few..." bad match.

(D) You're right. The ONLY is incorrect here. The argument doesn't say that Germany should be the ONLY one to help. The point is simply that Germany SHOULD help. For all we know, the author believes that hundreds of other countries should also help. Our job here is support the argument that Germany SHOULD. Eliminate.

(E) "Afford just a few..." Eliminate.

[charmayne.palomba]

PT46, S3, Q14 (Principle (support))

(B) is correct.

Whenever you see the word "principle" in a question stem, take a second to make sure you know what kind of question you’re working with. This question is a principle support question, which is just a fancy"”or more abstract"”strengthen question. We approach it just like any other assumption family problem: by identifying the core.

Germany is only neighboring country with resources to help troubled countries

-->

Germany should provide aid to these countries

Maybe this political scientist’s argument makes you raise your eyebrows. Is it really austere Germany’s responsibility to clean up when other countries make a mess? What if Germany’s aid makes the situation worse by hurting their own economy, or by giving other countries a crutch when what they really need is fundamental change? But our job is to find a principle that justifies the stance that it’s Germany’s responsibility to help out. Remember that since we’re looking for a principle to justify a particular action, we shouldn’t shy away from general language. A principle is really a broad assumption.

(B) tells us that any nation that alone has the capacity to help (like Germany!) should"”or is obligated to"”do so. This general principle provides justification for the political scientist’s specific conclusion that Germany should help its reckless neighbors, and that’s exactly what we’re looking for.

Let’s look at the wrong answers.

(A) Applying this to the political scientist’s argument, this principle would mean that if Germany has the obligation to help neighboring countries (our conclusion!), no other country should help. That doesn’t help us at all"”we need a principle to help us justify the conclusion, and this answer choice assumes that the conclusion is justified and goes on to make another, wholly unrelated, claim.

(C) We care about justifying Germany’s obligation to its neighbors, not limiting that responsibility ONLY to a particulate set of countries. Moreover, we don’t know that Germany is an example of a country that can afford to give aid to just a few nations"”maybe they have sufficient resources to bail out the whole world.

(D) Again, this is out of scope. Our job is to determine whether a country like Germany, which is in a unique position to help, has an obligation to do so. Whether or not other countries not in that unique position provide help or not is irrelevant.

(E) says that only countries that are limited in their resources should give aid to just a few. Presumably, countries that are not limited should assist more than just a few. As we saw with answer choice (C), we don’t know whether Germany is a nation that can afford to provide aid to just a few nations, and it doesn’t matter, because the conclusion is about Germany’s obligation to help a particular set of nations"”its neighbors. It’s not about an obligation to help as many countries as Germany has the resources to assist, nor is it about whether Germany should help only the particular set mentioned.

[wj097]

My 2 cents for these "only" type of answer choices.
When I get these "only" statements, I try to be really really careful in interpreting what it really means. Using (D) as an example, what it really is saying is nations that have met the requirement of being a nations w/ capacity have a chance to exercise that capacity, i.e., we aren't 100% saying that nations w/ capacity should be exercising capacity. So, (D) is actually not saying something should or should not done; it just describes a requirement (which can be one of many others) that needs to be met.

Thx

[Amir.m.shoar]

I was between (B) and (D) as well. Would it help to put it into conditional logic? My line of thinking is that the stimulus goes

Germany has capacity --> Germany should help

whereas D says,
Nation should help --> Nation has capacity

(this is because of the word "only")

Is this right?

[tommywallach]

Hey Amir,

Yep. You nailed it!

-t