PrepTest 104, Section 1, Question 6
Frankie: If jelly makers were given incentives to(91 more words not shown)
Anna's argument proceeds(1 more words not shown)
- Agiving a reason(15 more words not shown)
- Breinterpreting evidence presented(12 more words not shown)
- Cprojecting the result(16 more words not shown)
- Dproposing a general(10 more words not shown)
- Econtending that the(12 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
An incentive could get jelly makers to use more cloudberries. If you paid people to use a particular ingredient, I would expect at least some of them to respond. So Frankie's proposed link to more demand initially makes sense.
I might still wonder whether paying for that incentive is a good use of money. But Anna raises a different problem: who would receive the benefit of the increased demand?
Gatherers and farmers aren't the same group.
Anna's cacao example shows why that distinction matters. Wild gatherers couldn't supply enough cacao when chocolate became popular, so farms began producing large quantities cheaply. Farms eventually supplied all the cacao used in commercial chocolate. Anna predicts a similar change for cloudberries: the new business would go to farms, replacing the wild gatherers Frankie wants to help.
What we’re looking for
We could question whether cloudberries would follow cacao's path. For this question, though, we're identifying Anna's method. She uses an earlier, comparable situation to predict the result of the proposed plan. The historical example is meant to show how the plan could fail to help its intended beneficiaries.
Working the answers
- A
Anna predicts harm to the gatherers, whose wild berries would be replaced by farmed berries. Even if farmers or buyers benefited, that wouldn't be a benefit to everyone affected. Her argument challenges the proposed benefit rather than establishing a universal one.
- B
Anna supplies new evidence: the history of cacao production. Frankie hasn't presented that history in favor of the plan, so Anna isn't taking Frankie's evidence and giving it a different interpretation. She introduces a comparison of her own to challenge the predicted result.
- CCorrect
The proposed situation is increased demand for cloudberries. The past situation is increased demand for cacao. In the earlier case, farms replaced wild gathering; Anna predicts that the same kind of replacement would follow the cloudberry proposal.
That maps all the important pieces: a proposal, a forecast of its result, and a historical comparison used to support the forecast.
- D
Anna doesn't begin with a general theory of how every market works. She describes one particular market history and applies it to another situation. A broad theory explaining a case is different from a specific case used as a comparison.
- E
The argument doesn't depend on cacao and cloudberries being used in similar foods. It isn't saying that cloudberry jelly and chocolate serve the same purpose. The relevant similarity concerns production: wild gathering could give way to farming when demand grows.
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