Logical Reasoning

PT111 · S4 · Q21 All social systems are based

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All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles.

Facts

conditionals (all, any)

social system → based on division of econ roles

social system → new labor-saving tech that makes some econ roles obsolete will tend to undermine values in soc sys

causal (therefore unsurprising that)

The fact that the prestige rendering some accorded to diff econ roles >> roles obsolete reflects the values of soc sys undermines values

Evaluate

We read Most Supported primarily for causal ideas and secondarily for conditionals / pivots / math-y ideas / comparisons.

The big causal idea here is that since we express our society's values in part by how must prestige we grant to different economic roles, when an economic role disappears, it affects society's value system.

Goal

It's hard to predict an answer on Most Supported, but it usually rewards our understanding of the cause/effect relationships. So look for an answer relating to the idea that we imbue certain economic roles with prestige, reflecting our values, and then when we lose those roles, it undermines our values.

21.

Which one of the following can most reasonably be concluded on the basis of the information above?

  1. Social systems will have unchanging

    Too Strong

    We were basically told that if you HAVE technological advancement, you'll change the values of the social system. This is doing an illegal negation, saying If you DON'T HAVE technological advancement, you won't ever change the values of the social system. We could have supported a squishier "flip the causal difference maker" inversion, like, "Social systems with lower levels of technology replacing economic roles will tend to have more stable values than those with higher levels." But this answer is said way too strongly. Guaranteeing that something will never change is way too extreme.

    5% picked this

  2. No type of technology will

    Too Strong

    "No type of technology will fail to undermine the values" — i.e., every technology undermines values. The stimulus only says labor-saving technology that makes economic roles obsolete tends to undermine values.

    3% picked this

  3. Correct

    A social system whose values

    Why this is right

    This is a contrapositive to the final sentence, and rewards our understanding of the cause/effect relationship of role-killing technology undermining our system's values. The stimulus says: in any social system, introducing role-eliminating technology will tend to undermine values (i.e., the values will change). Flipping that: a social system whose values are not susceptible to change cannot be one in which there is role-eliminating technology. If you know that any person riding Splash Mountain will come out with wet clothes, then it's fair to say that "a person wearing dry clothes would not be one who just rode Splash Mountain".

    Skill tested: Most Supported · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    54% picked this

  4. A technologically advanced society will

    Unsupported

    The stimulus says values are embodied in the prestige of economic roles, not that prestige is / isn't valued itself. This is just a word salad. We were never talking about how much or how little value we were putting on prestige. We were saying how much / how little prestige we put onto certain economic roles says something about what our social system values.

    21% picked this

  5. A technological innovation that is

    Out of Scope

    This would be pretty supportable if we knew that this technological innovation that was implemented in the foreign social system made certain economic roles obsolete in that foreign system. But that's the specific type of tech innovation that undermines the values of a system. This answer is about all tech innovations, and so we can't generalize about whether most of them have this effect.

    17% picked this

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