PrepTest 151, Section 4, Question 25
If ecology and the physical sciences were evaluated(56 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(11 more words not shown)
- AIf sales taxes(45 more words not shown)
- BIf this gallery(51 more words not shown)
- CIf cars of(51 more words not shown)
- DIf physicists attempted(44 more words not shown)
- EIf any economic(46 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe ecology belongs in a different category and needs a different standard.
The first sentence says applying the physical sciences' criteria would make ecology unsuccessful: it cannot be captured in simple laws. But the next sentence tells us ecology is successful. Accepting both statements rules out the proposed use of those same criteria. If they were being used, we would get the failure that the passage says we don't have.
What we’re looking for
For the parallel, the subject matter can change. Keep the reasoning: one condition would produce a particular result; that result is absent; therefore, the condition isn't present. Here the condition is using the same criteria, and the absent result is ecology's failure.
Working the answers
- A
Raising taxes would lead to one of two outcomes: higher woodchip prices or the disappearance of the industry. The argument rejects the price increase and selects the other outcome. That is an either-or choice between results, rather than ruling out the starting condition because its required result is absent.
There is also no statement that the sales tax actually rises. Even granting the market cannot bear higher prices, the conclusion about the industry's disappearance needs that additional starting point. Neither feature matches the original's complete reasoning.
- B
Borrowing the works would make the largest exhibition possible. To copy the original, we would need the exhibition to be impossible and then infer that the works can't be borrowed. Instead, B says there is no demand for larger exhibitions and concludes that other galleries won't want to lend. Lack of demand isn't inability to hold the exhibition, and the connection from demand to the other galleries' willingness is missing.
- C
This establishes the starting condition: future cars will use lighter, stronger materials. It then infers the promised result, fewer fatalities. That can be valid reasoning, but it travels a different route. The original starts with the promised result not happening and uses that to rule out the condition that would have produced it.
- D
Attempting social-science research is the initial condition, and probable success equal to other researchers is the predicted result. D then says physicists rarely attempt that research. That isn't a statement that the predicted result is absent, and it doesn't rule out the initial condition. Some physicists could attempt it and succeed. The conclusion about who is among the most successful doesn't reproduce the original's exclusion of a condition whose result is missing.
- ECorrect
An adequate economic theory would make accurate forecasts possible. Accurate forecasts aren't possible, so there is no adequate theory. The adequate theory plays the role of evaluating ecology by the physical sciences' criteria; possible accurate forecasts play the role of ecology's failure. In each case, the second premise says the required result isn't present, and the conclusion rules out the condition that would produce it.
The conclusion about economic theories doesn't have to resemble the original's topic. What matters is that the same steps connect the premises to the conclusion.
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