Logical Reasoning

PT148 · S4 · Q10 Farmer: Agricultural techniques

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Farmer: Agricultural techniques such as crop rotation that do not use commercial products may solve agricultural problems at least as well as any technique, such as pesticide application, that does use such products.

Conclusion

For the most part, only govt-sponsored research investigates agricultural techniques that do not use commercial products.

Evidence

No private for-profit corporation will sponsor research that is unlikely to lead to marketable products.

Crop rotation is an agricultural technique that does not use commercial products (and it may solve problems at least as well as techniques like pesticides that do use commercial products).

Evaluate

The argument seems to boil down to a move from

Isn't that kind of a False Choice? Does research have to be sponsored either by private, for-profit corporations or by government? (The wording "for the most part" softens this and doesn't make it a true False Choice, but in a gist-y sense it's still that)

How else, besides government or private / for-profit corporations, could we see research into something like crop rotation get done?

- nonprofit corporations - volunteer organizations - curious individuals - academic institutions

The other issue with this argument is that it never spells out its Missing Link assumption that . That assumption is what would make the author think that for-profit corporations aren't going to be doing this type of research.

Goal

The correct answer will probably strengthen by helping the author get closer to her either/or of by ruling out some other possibility for who might conduct this type of research.

Or it will supply the author's assumption that this type of research is unlikely to lead to marketable products (and thus for-profits are unlikely to undertake this research).

10.

Which one of the following, if true, most strengthens the farmer's argument?

The government sponsors at least
Weaker than Correct Answer
This does affirm a Necessary Assumption of the argument, that the government sponsors ANY research of this type. But "some" just means "at least one" so this is a very weak amount of strengthening.
12% picked this
For almost any agricultural problem,
No Impact
The fact that there are so many of these techniques doesn't help inform our conversation about who is / isn't sponsoring research into these types of techniques. If anything, this answer makes it sound like no more research needs to be done, since for almost any agricultural problem, we already have at least one sufficient technique that doesn't use commercial products.
5% picked this
Correct
Investigations of agricultural techniques are
Why this is right
This basically turns the 'False' Choice into a legitimate one. If for-profit corps and the government are "for the most part" only going to be sponsored by one or both of these two entities, then the author looks more solid saying, 'If the for-profit corps aren't going to do it, then for the most part only government sponsored research is going to happen.
Skill tested: Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
52% picked this
Most if not all investigations
Out of Scope
Out of Scope: do use comm. products This argument is about who is / isn't sponsoring research into techniques that don't use commercial products. Hearing about who is sponsoring techniques that do use commercial products will have unclear impact, if any, on this conversation.
11% picked this
Most if not all government-sponsored
Weaker than Correct Answer
This is an improved version of (A). Not only does the government do some research of the type in question ... most of its research is of this type! Great, but that tells us nothing about the overall picture of who is / isn't doing research in this arena. We pretty much took it as a given that the government was contributing some research of this type, but the conclusion hinges on whether other entities are also doing research of this type. The government sponsors public events every year. Even if most of those events feature popular bands, that doesn't mean that "for the most part, only government-sponsored events feature popular bands". Even if most of the govt-sponsored agricultural research is for techniques that don't use commercial products, that might still be a small share of the total research done on such techniques, and the conclusion is claiming that the government is doing 80% or more of the total research on such techniques (I made up that 80%, but that's the gist).
20% picked this

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