Q16 - A number of measures indicate

[amenah.khalil]

I chose answer choice A because I thought that the author didn't make any connections between economic viability and population size. In retrospect, I can see that C does sound more plausible, but I still don't have a concrete idea of why A is wrong, either. It would be great if someone can explain why choice C is better than A. Thanks!

[timmydoeslsat]

This is a most strongly supported question stem. We want something that has support from the passage, often times a less strict must be true situation.

This stimulus tells us a that number of things indicate the viability of an economy. It gives us some indicators and lists some as most significant and others that are also important. It also gives us a list of countries that have viable economies. It mentions that two of the countries have populations of about 7 million and the others are at least 1/4th smaller.

We know that we have two countries of 7 million people with viable economies and countries with less than 7 million people with viable economies.

This is what C is telling us. It is not a requirement for a country to have 7 million people to have a viable economy.

Answer choice A is not provable. Population and economic viability may not be independent of each other. We do not know the relative comparisons of each country listed as its respective viability. It could be the case that the more people you have, the more viable economy you have. All we know from the stimulus is that all of the countries listed have viable economies.

[maryadkins]

Great explanation, here. I have nothing to add!

I hope this helped clarify for you! Certainly re-post a follow up if not.