Logical Reasoning

PT154 · S4 · Q18 Economist: Machinery firms in this country

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Economist: Machinery firms in this country argue that in order to grow big enough to compete successfully with foreign rivals, the protection that they have been receiving from foreign competition must be extended for several more years.

Statements

Machinery firms' opinion / conditional

growing big enough must extend the to successfully → protection from foreign compete competition

conditional

possible for protection protection would to enable them to → have accomplished grow big enough that w/in 10 yrs

fact

They've been receiving protection for 10 years.

Evaluate

When we're given conditionals in Inference questions, we're asking ourselves whether they chain together with other conditionals or whether there are any facts we're provided with that would trigger them (or, more often, trigger their contrapositives).

Here, we're given a rule that says, .

Then we get the facts that the protection has already been in place for 10 years and the companies are still asking for more protection so that they can grow big enough.

So by the contrapositive of the author's conditional, we can derive that apparently .

Goal

Since the facts presented triggered the contrapositive of the conditional, we will probably see an answer that reinforces the outcome of that contrapositive: it is not possible for foreign protection to help machinery firms grow big enough to compete with foreign rivals.

18.

The economist's statements, if true, most strongly support which one of the following?

  1. Protection from foreign competition rarely

    Too Broad/Strong: rarely, if ever

    This is close to what we were looking for, which is why it's no accident that it's answer choice (A) -- Inference questions frequently put a tempting but distorted version of what we want in spot (A). The conditional is only about whether it's possible for protection from foreign competition to enable this country's firms to grow big enough to successfully compete. This answer is saying something much broader and stronger -- that protection rarely if ever succeeds. The author isn't saying that foreign protection rarely succeeds, just that when it does it does so within ten years.

    6% picked this

  2. Ten years is a sufficient

    Too Strong: any policy

    The author's conditional is only saying that 10 years is sufficient to ascertain whether the economic policy of providing protection from foreign competitors is successful at allowing this country's machinery firms to grow enough. We don't have any support for the idea that 10 years is always a sufficient time frame for assessing any economic policy.

    12% picked this

  3. None of the machinery firms

    Too Strong: none

    The statements reveal that protection from foreign competitors hasn't allowed firms to grow big enough to compete with foreign rivals, but they still might have grown significantly. My bookstore might grow significantly (200% more revenue than last year!) but still be miles away from being big enough to compete successfully with Amazon.

    9% picked this

  4. Most of the machinery firms

    Too Strong / Specific: most, unless Opposite

    The gist of this paragraph is that foreign protection isn't working (at its goal of enabling the firms to grow big enough to compete internationally). We don't have any support for this idea that "we need protection from foreign competition or else most firms will go out of business".

    3% picked this

  5. Correct

    Protection from foreign competition will

    Why this is right

    We were given a conditional that said, "If it were possible for protection to enable this country's firms to take on foreign rivals, then 10 years of protection would have already accomplished that goal". Since the other facts we're told seemingly reveal that 10 years of protection has already happened and they haven't achieved that goal, we can conclude that "it is not possible for protection to enable this country's firms to take on foreign rivals".

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

    70% picked this

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