Q24 - Trade official: Country X deserves

[zhanga]

Can someone break down the answers for me thanks!

[timmydoeslsat]

This is #24 of this section in the PrepTest. Make sure to edit the question number in the title so that we can have an accurate location!

This is an unusual question stem in that we are asked to pick a principle that the argument depends on, aka...a necessary assumption that is in the form of a principle.

The core of the argument can be seen as follows:

Country X deserves punishment for protectionism

+

It is important to recognize overriding considerations in this case. This would be the fact that high demand exists in our country for agricultural imports from Country X.

-------> THEREFORE....

We should still sell to X the agricultural equipment it ordered.

Do those premises entail that particular conclusion? No. We obviously need a principle guiding us of what we should or should not do.

We must be wary of not treating this like a normal justifying principle question, because those principle answer choices can be seen as sufficient principles to justify a particular conclusion.

We want to select one that is necessary. We will keep that in mind as we look at the answer choices.

A) I do not like the language of this. Components of ag. trade? What constitutes components of trade? Who cares about the importance and its relativity to nonag. commodities. It is not necessary to arrive at a "Should still sell ag. equipment to X."

b) Same issue of importance and a comparison of importance between two variables. In this case, of keeping popular products available domestically and entering international markets. Entering? We have nothing to base relevance of entering international markets. This is not necessary, and certainly does not let us conclude "should still sell ag. equipment to X."

C) This is tempting if you do not know that you are looking for a necessary principle. Is it necessary for us to NEVER jeopardize the interests of our people to punish a protectionist country? No. It is not necessary. We only need it to not jeopardize our agriculture situation. I would argue that this is sufficient to get the conclusion, but is not necessary.

D) Became skeptical of this answer choice from the start because it begins with "In most cases." I am already doubting this. MUST we know something about most cases? There is nothing in the stimulus concerning a majority of people. I will continue reading, but I am very skeptical at this point. This rest of this answer choice simply does not validate our conclusion. In fact, it creates a sense of doubt about the occurrence of the conclusion! Most could imply all, and in "most" cases, punishing a protectionist country SHOULD HAVE priority over the interests of our people. NO WAY.

We want a principle that considers the overriding considerations.

E) This fits the bill. Try negating it.

"We should not balance the justice of an action with the consequences for our interests of undertaking that action."

If that is the case, then our conclusion is DESTROYED! That means that this assumption, is in fact, necessary because we just showed that the argument cannot be valid without this assumption.

[liu.cm.1]

I also chose C because I had carelessly misread the answer choice to say "protectionist" instead of "projectionist".

In the case that it does say "protectionist", would answer C be correct? If negated, then it would be "we should always jeopardize the interest of our people to punish a protectionist country", which destroys the argument. If this principle holds, then we should NOT still sell to X.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

I also chose C because I had carelessly misread the answer choice to say "protectionist" instead of "projectionist".

I just took a look at the question, and I see the same typo. Both answer choices (C) and (D) say "projectionist," but they should read "protectionist."

That said, we can still eliminate these answer choices for other reasons.

The argument concludes that we should still sell to X the agricultural equipment it ordered even though country X deserves retribution. Why? Because there is high demand for the agricultural imports from country X.

We're asked to find a principle (general rule) the argument depends on assuming (think Necessary Assumption). Answer choice (E) must be assumed in order to consider the exception from punishment advocated by the argument.

Incorrect Answers
(A) need not be assumed. No comparison between agricultural and nonagricultural commodities is made in the argument. Instead the trade off is between justice in light of country X's protectionism and the demand for agricultural products exported by country X.
(B) undermines the argument by weakening the importance of keeping available popular products (such as those agricultural imports from country X).
(C) is too strong. We need not assume that we should never jeopardize the interests of our country in order to punish another, but rather that we should not always jeopardize the interests of our country to punish another.
(D) undermines the argument by reducing the importance of the interests of our people compared to the punishment a protectionist country.

[albertoduro1xx]

Hi, if anyone could rephrase answer choice E in plain english I'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

[jiexic67]

This is how i see E with the argument :
"the justice of an action" refers to that X deserve the retribution; "the consequences for our interests of undertaking the action" refers to that if we stop sell the agricultural equipment to X, we will have consequences of hurting our interests .

But my question is that E says we should balance these two, but in the stimulus, it says our interests are the overriding considerations, which doesn't sound like a balance to me! That's why i eliminate E.

Any one helps? Thank you.