PT148 S4 Q10 ExplanationFarmer: Agricultural techniques

Answer choices, explained

1. A

   Weaker than Correct Answer12% picked this

   The government sponsors at least some investigations of agricultural techniques that are considered likely to solve agricultural problems and

   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%
2. B

   No Impact5% picked this

   For almost any agricultural problem, there is at least one agricultural technique that does not use commercial products but that

   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%
3. C

   Correct53% picked this

   Investigations of agricultural techniques are rarely sponsored by individuals or by any entity other than private for-profit

   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.

   53%
4. D

   Out of Scope10% picked this

   Most if not all investigations of agricultural techniques that use commercial products are sponsored by

   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.

   10%
5. E

   Weaker than Correct Answer20% picked this

   Most if not all government-sponsored agricultural research investigates agricultural techniques that do not

   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%