Q22 - Damming the Merv River would provide irrigation for th

[daytimeowl17]

I got the answer C correct, but I had hard time deleting B from the options.

Stimulus: Dam reduces productivity downstream. This productivity loss will be greater than the productivity gain upstream. Hence, no overall gain in productivity in the region as a whole.

(B) Increasing price discourages private individuals, but most of the calls are made by business. Hence, no overall reduction in company profit.

(C) A new highway reduces the commuting time for reaching the city but increases the time within the city. Hence, no overall reduction in commuting time.

Is (B) wrong cuz we don't know if there's any increase in business call that is offset by decrease in private calls? Can someone help? Thank you!

[rashman65]

I believe that B is wrong because it is too neutral. It does not imply which choice is better.

[daytimeowl17]

Thanks for your reply, rashman!
I'm actually having hard time seeing any tone difference between B and C. I didn't think either C or the stimulus is advocating a particular choice- they are simply pointing out that doing a certain thing (building a dam or new highway) does not help overall. Could you please elaborate on B being more neutral?

[ohthatpatrick]

The actual argument core here is

CONC:
building a dam wouldn't provide a net gain to the agric. productivity of the region as a whole

why?
PREM:
because even though you'd get more productivity upstream, you'd get less downstream (and the loss would be greater than the gain).

Okay, now we need to put this in the abstract (remove the topic).

CONC:
doing X would not yield a net gain

why?
PREM:
the losses would outweigh the gains

Since Match the Reasoning questions are so long, many of us take a "Conclusion Shortcut" by first eliminating answers that have poor matches for the conclusion, in terms of the type/strength of claim the original conclusion makes.

(A) Skipping right to the conclusion, via "so", I would not bother reading this one, since saying "X is better than Y" is a poor match for "doing X would not yield a net gain".

(B) Skipping to the conclusion, via the "since" premise indicator, I would consider this one but judge it weak. Saying "doing X will not yield a net loss" isn't the best match for "doing X would not yield a net gain", but it's close enough to consider.

(C) Skipping to the conclusion, via the "Therefore", I would have the same thoughts as (B). Weak, but worth considering.

(D) Skipping via "Therefore", I would eliminate this one for the same reason we did (A). "X is better than Y" is a terrible match.

(E) Skipping via "so", I would eliminate this one because "the only things that are X are Y" is a terrible match for "doing X would not result in a net gain".

Okay, so only (B) and (C) are worth reading.

Do they each have a premise that says "the gains outweigh the losses" or vice versa?

(B) doesn't seem to have any language like that. There's nothing about balancing out the gains and the losses.

(C), meanwhile, talks about "delays within the city that will more than offset the time saved on the highway".

Ding-ding-ding! We have a winner.

Technically, (C) was a better match for the conclusion as well, but I was pretending to be using a very fuzzy, coarse-grained lens in looking at (B) vs. (C).

(B) talks about reducing profits (reducing profits is a BAD thing) and is concluding that "doing X will not result overall in this BAD thing".

(C) talks about reducing commuter time (reducing commuter time is a GOOD thing) and is concluding that "doing X will not result overall in this GOOD thing".

That's a much better match for our original argument, which was saying that "doing X [building the dam] will not result overall in this GOOD thing [increasing agricultural productivity]".

So if you had a nuanced eye, you could get (C) purely from the Conclusion shortcut.

Otherwise, we dig in deeper on (B) vs. (C) and make sure that the premise contains the same "balance sheet" ideas as the original: "the productivity loss downstream would be greater than the productivity gain upstream".

Hope this helps.

[daytimeowl17]

That was incredible! Fantastic, really!
Haven't thought of comparing the ultimate results of the proposed actions (not reducing gain vs. not reducing loss).
Thanks a lot, Patrick.