Q26 - In the aftermath of the Cold War

[nanagyanewa]

Hello,

Could someone please explain to me what this question means? I found it very difficult linking the correct answer E to the stimulus. I eliminated down to C and E but I chose C because I understood it better. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[bbirdwell]

so the argument is kind of like this:

AFTER the war, relationships between ALLIES became more difficult.

whoa. pause for a moment. that's odd, isn't it? i wonder why.

Leaders of Allied nations had to be tactful in order not to arouse tensions that had PREVIOUSLY (during the war) been overlooked.

hmmm... now we are looking for a match.

(C) when there's a military commitment, fundamental agreement is more easily reached. Not a great match even if we allow "military commitment" to equal "ally." "Fundamental agreement" is a not a good fit, and is simply too extreme here. We have no evidence that "fundamental agreement" was not in effect after the war, either. We only know that "relations" were more difficult. Nations can fundamentally agree and yet have difficult relations.

(E) a common enemy (when allies are at war....with someone else) -- this is a match so far -- enables nations to ignore economic tensions. Yes! This is a match. After the war, PREVIOUSLY overlooked tensions became an issue.

Does that help?

[nanagyanewa]

Thanks!

[jennifer]

why is answer choice E correct and answer choice C incorrrect? thank you

[aileenann]

(A) is not the answer because it's comparing two different forms of tension. This doesn't really describe or connect up with what we saw in the argument, which was really about focusing on v. ignoring tension. (A) gives us two kinds of tension, whereas we only care about tension v. no or overlooked tension.

(E) is a good answer because it gets at two things - the common enemy and the ignoring of the tension. It also greatly describes what's going on in the argument's presentation of the Cold War in explaining why the situation would have happened - that tension would first be ignored and then become salient.

I think the best way to deal with this sort of question is to take a very broad understanding of the passage. Don't look to get more specific but rather focus on the broadest and most important ideas and how they relate to one another.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have more questions.

[jiyoonsim]

Thanks to your reply, I understand how E is the correct answer. But what about D? Why is D wrong, and what is the difference between D and E? I think D can be applied to the stem too...

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

This is definitely one that can make you pause and be real careful. I'd be testing out each principle very closely to make sure everything matched.

Answer choice (D) is just a little too strong. I don't think we can say that economic matters are unimportant, but rather that differences on economic matters can be more easily overlooked between allies.

The way I thought about it was that during war economic matters are still important. For example, where do you come up with the money to build ships for the Navy, or tanks for the Army. You need money for that. It's the tensions with other nations on economic matters that you might be willing to ignore for a little while.

I hope that helps clear this one up!

[nicholasasquith]

A) seemed irrelevant, since, although we know economic tensions are higher post cold war, we have no information about the level of tension military competition created.

B) seemed like a good choice, bonds would be weaker now, if we assume that by "common economic goals" we're referring to the economic negotiations that are tense, and that they were stronger during the cold war, when nations had a common enemy to fear. This seems a little absolute for a single scenario, it definitely couldn't pass as a MBT question, but as a principle I'd still keep it in mind.

C) There's definitely no evidence to support this, we just know economic tensions were exposed after the cold war, no idea if it was easier to reach economic agreements before, we just know they were "overlooked".

D) I picked this, I guess I was wrong because I equated "previously overlooked" economic tensions as meaning economic matters themselves were considered unimportant during the cold war.

E) This looked a lot like B, so I had it down to (B), (D) and (E). But like most ACs that look alike, (E) uses similar language to say a very different thing. While (B) says that bonds are stronger from a common enemy than economic goals, (E) says a common enemy causes stronger bonds to occur, and these bonds allow them to ignore economic tensions.

All in all I thought this was a time consuming question (Of course, it was the last one!) I think Matt's example for D highlights how its too broad for the principle to apply. You can't equivocate overlooking economic tensions with considering economic matters unimportant.

[Mab6q]

I'm having a hard time trying to understand this question by applying my skills for principle questions. If try to treat this as a sufficient assumption, it seems that you guys are eliminating some ACs such as D for being too strong, whereas looking at like a necessary assumption has a similar issue. I'm just having a hard time understanding what AC E gives us that the others don't, in terms of what this question is asking for, a principle that the stim conforms to. Can't that be an overly broad principle like D?

I have principle questions because of the different ways they are worded.

[tommywallach]

Hey Mab,

I'm not really sure I understand your question. Sounds like you're just annoyed by this one. It's a tricky one, but I don't think there's a real answer to your question. It's just a hard one in this family. The necessary/sufficient stuff is less important/relevant here than just the minutiae of the answer choices.

-t

[pinchuspolack]

Hi! I'm having a really hard time digesting answer E. When I did this problem I was split between D & E. I understand based on the above responses how D is a little too strong. But if we analyze answer E, I'm still left with some issues: "A common enemy contributes to a strengthened bond between nations, enabling them to ignore economic tensions that would otherwise be problematic." OK, the second clause of that sentence, starting from the word enabling, fits the example almost word for word. However, the first clause, "A common enemy contributes to a strengthened bond between nations" does not seem mentioned in the example. The example only discusses a deterioration of relations between countries after war time, never whether these allies had a heightened allegiance to each other during war time. In addition, the idea of a common enemy that's introduced in answer choice E is not discussed in the example. Just because countries are allies does not mean they automatically have a common enemy. America is allies with Turkey through NATO, yet Kurdish rebels are considered an enemy of the Turkish State, not America.

It seems like assumptions are being made which are out of scope to arrive at this answer. From what I understand, we're not only supposed to, we're obligated, to be able to answer every LSAT question without any assistance from external sources (i.e. History of the Cold War). Please advise.

Thanks in advanced for your help.

[maryadkins]

I think calling them allies during wartime (even Cold War time) leads to a reasonable inference of a common enemy. Otherwise I don't know why their being allies would matter, or why the Cold War would be mentioned, at all. It's sort of the only way to interpret it that makes sense, which is kind of my personal standard for when it's okay to "make assumptions" on the LSAT: make the assumptions that are necessary for the text to make sense. If you analyze so tediously that it just becomes pointless gibberish, you're actually doing yourself a disservice by stripping it of its meaning, and you're not left with reasoning to evaluate.

[malcolma7]

(A) is not the answer because it's comparing two different forms of tension. This doesn't really describe or connect up with what we saw in the argument, which was really about focusing on v. ignoring tension. (A) gives us two kinds of tension, whereas we only care about tension v. no or overlooked tension.

(E) is a good answer because it gets at two things - the common enemy and the ignoring of the tension. It also greatly describes what's going on in the argument's presentation of the Cold War in explaining why the situation would have happened - that tension would first be ignored and then become salient.

I think the best way to deal with this sort of question is to take a very broad understanding of the passage. Don't look to get more specific but rather focus on the broadest and most important ideas and how they relate to one another.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have more questions.

Thanks for the explanation. I really liked your explanation. But I have a question. If you read this military article https://www.agmglobalvision.com/the-best-snipers-in-history about the best snipers, don't you think that the more correct answer would be option A? How do you think? Is it possible I'm wrong?
Thanks for understanding.