A number of measures indicate

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: independent of22% picked this

   A nation’s economic viability is independent of the size of

   To say that X is independent of Y means that "X has nothing to do with Y". We can tell that economic viability is not exclusively based on population, since the passage provides examples of more populous and less populous countries that are each viable. But it's too much to say that population has nothing to do with economic viability. It's very possible that at the extremes, an incredibly sparse population or overly dense population could have issues with economic viability.

   22%
2. B

   Too Strong: ensures0% picked this

   Having a population larger than seven million ensures that a nation will

   We definitely can't derive this crazy strong universal claim just from the handful of countries we heard about. This is saying that "every single nation with a population larger than 7 million will be viable".

   0%
3. C

   Correct73% picked this

   Economic viability does not require a population of at least

   Why this is right

   This is incredibly weak, and thus attractive, wording. To prove that "X does not require Y", we just need one example where X is true but Y isn't. Do we have an example where a nation is economically viable but doesn't have a population of at least seven million? Yup, we have four examples in fact: Israel, Ireland, Denmark, and Finland.

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

   73%
4. D

   Too Strong: most significant2% picked this

   A nation’s population is the most significant contributor to the level and rate of growth

   We were told that level and rate of growth of aggregate output are the most significant contributors to economic viability. This answer is tossing a word salad by combining that with population, since population was elsewhere discussed. But we have no evidence that population is an important factor when it comes to economic viability, since we're offered examples of countries with very different population sizes (two of them are 4x more populous than the others) and yet all of them are viable.

   2%
5. E

   Unsupported Causal Claim3% picked this

   A nation’s population affects the level and rate of growth of aggregate output more than it affects

   This is just like (D), in the sense that it's acting like population is a big causal factor when it comes to economic viability. We don't know if population is a causal factor at all. We have viable countries that are big and small. There's no way we can derive any comparative idea about population's causal effect on unemployment/inflation vs. its effect on level and rate of growth of aggregate output.

   3%