Logical Reasoning

PT119 · S4 · Q7 In preagricultural societies, social roles

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In preagricultural societies, social roles were few and were easily predicted for each phase of a person’s life.

Setup

Causality (accordingly)

In preagricultural societies, social roles were >> interpersonal relations few / predictable were stable / predictable

In modern societies social roles are incredibly many .....

Evaluate

It looks like they're setting up the ol' Flip the Causal Difference Maker.

If they tell us that drinking tons of water before a race increases your likelihood of cramping during the race, then we can say .

Since they told us that having few social roles meant that interpersonal relations were stable and predictable, we can say that in modern society where we have tons of social roles, interpersonal relations will be less stable / less predictable.

Goal

Let's look for an answer saying, .

7.

Which one of the following most logically completes the argument?

  1. modern society is characterized by

    Unsupported Comparison

    This answer is trying to flip the other half of what we were told about preagricultural societies. If they had told us that having few social roles leads to pleasant / fair interpersonal relations, then we could flip that into saying having many social roles leads to unpleasant / unfair interpersonal relations, which is essentially what this answer is offering. However, the comment about interpersonal relations for pre-modern societies was that they are "not always pleasant / fair". We weren't told that having few social roles leads to pleasant / fair relations. The only thing we know about these pre-modern societies is that sometimes relations weren't pleasant or fair. So we don't know whether there's any connection between few/many social roles and more/less pleasant and fair relations.

    0% picked this

  2. Correct

    interpersonal relations in modern societies

    Why this is right

    Here is what we predicted. This is just flipping the causality. In pre-modern societies, having few and predictable social roles led to stable and predictable interpersonal relations. Since modern societies have tons of new/different social roles, we'd expect modern societies to have less stable / less predictable interpersonal relations.

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

    93% picked this

  3. the most important difference between

    Too Strong (most important)

    There is only one difference between modern and preagricultural societies mentioned in the stimulus, but we're never allowed to think that the only thing mentioned is therefore the only thing / the primary thing / the most important thing.

    3% picked this

  4. in modern societies, people must

    Too Strong (must rely)

    This answer should be unappealing since it's not actually using anything we learned from the first two sentences. And it's just inventing an extreme idea that the only way to predict or interpret other people's actions is via technology?

    1% picked this

  5. preagricultural societies lacked the complex

    Trap

    Too Strong (needed) Out of Scope (appropriate) Who said that you need a complex social system to provide each person with an appropriate and stable social role or niche? We were never speaking in terms of whether social roles were appropriate. Even though pre-agricultural societies had few social roles, it's possible that those roles were capable of giving each person an appropriate / stable social role. "Timmy, you're fast and strong. You're a hunter. Louie, you're smart and detail oriented. You're a gatherer."

    3% picked this

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