PrepTest 105, Section 4, Question 24
If an external force intervenes to give members(45 more words not shown)
The reasoning above conforms most(8 more words not shown)
- APolitical freedom is(11 more words not shown)
- BSelf-determination is not(17 more words not shown)
- CA community cannot(9 more words not shown)
- DPolitical self-determination is(9 more words not shown)
- EReal freedom should(9 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Being given freedom and being able to keep it may be different achievements. The author thinks the struggle to become free helps a community develop qualities it needs to maintain freedom. If an outside force supplies political self-determination, the community may miss that development.
Imagine someone receiving a large amount of money without having learned to manage it. The gift gives the person wealth immediately, but it doesn't supply the skills needed to hold on to it. That's an analogy for the author's concern, not a claim that every recipient loses the money.
The same caution applies to the passage. It says the virtues have their best chance of developing during the community's own struggle. That isn't a claim that no other route is possible. The predicted failure is almost certain, not absolutely guaranteed.
What we’re looking for
We're asked which principle the reasoning follows. My broad prediction is that getting something handed to you can leave you poorly prepared to keep it. For the answer, look for the specific connection this argument needs: maintaining freedom requires certain political virtues.
Working the answers
- A
Watch the change in terms. The argument allows an outside force to give a community political self-determination, but doubts that the community will become truly free. A calls political freedom a virtue attainable through that intervention. That doesn't express the requirement for maintaining freedom on which the reasoning depends.
- B
The argument doesn't rank political virtues in the order people acquire them. It doesn't even classify self-determination as one of those virtues. The relevant point is that certain virtues are needed to maintain freedom, not that self-determination occupies a particular place in a sequence.
- CCorrect
A community needs certain political virtues in order to remain free. That's the requirement explicitly used by the argument. If the community hasn't developed what maintaining freedom requires, receiving political self-determination won't by itself solve that problem.
C doesn't say the virtues are enough to guarantee lasting freedom. A community could develop them and still face other obstacles. They are necessary for keeping freedom, which is all the principle needs to say.
- D
This makes political self-determination the requirement for remaining free. The passage's stated requirement is the development of political virtues. Whatever relationship self-determination might have to freedom more generally, D doesn't capture the connection used to explain why outside intervention is unlikely to succeed.
- E
A prediction that an intervention probably won't produce lasting freedom isn't, by itself, a rule that no one should intervene. The passage doesn't make that recommendation. E adds a judgment about what ought to be done instead of stating the principle about what a community needs to maintain freedom.
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