PrepTest 152, Section 2, Question 22
Although human economic exchange predates historical records, it(60 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(9 more words not shown)
- AThe argument concludes(15 more words not shown)
- BThe argument contains(5 more words not shown)
- CThe argument presumes(12 more words not shown)
- DThe argument infers(17 more words not shown)
- EThe argument relies(14 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Barter coming first might sound plausible. But sounding plausible isn't evidence about what happened before historical records began.
The examples show that people sometimes turn to barter when currency disappears. That tells us what they do when money becomes unavailable, not what the world's first economy looked like. Calling this a return to the 'original barter system' quietly assumes the very point we're supposed to be proving. Was barter original? That's the question.
What we’re looking for
The flaw is that the argument goes in a circle: barter came first because people return to the system that came first, which we're simply calling barter. Look for an answer saying that the evidence already assumes the conclusion.
Working the answers
- A
The author doesn't identify something required for an outcome and then treat it as a cause of that outcome. The dispute is about which kind of exchange came first. Our problem is that the supposed evidence labels one system original before establishing that it was.
- B
The premises don't contradict each other. Saying that people use barter when currency disappears and abandon barter when currency returns can be perfectly consistent. The problem isn't that the claims can't both be true; it's that calling barter original assumes the conclusion.
- C
There is no recommendation to return to barter or to copy past economic practices. The author is making a claim about what happened first. A historical claim is different from an argument that we should do something because people once did it.
- D
The argument isn't saying that barter caused money to develop because barter happened earlier. It's trying to establish that barter happened earlier at all. This choice describes a different mistake: using a sequence of events to infer a causal connection between them.
- ECorrect
The premise that economies return to the 'original barter system' presupposes that barter was the original system. But that's what the conclusion is supposed to establish. The author hasn't supplied independent support for that historical claim by repeating it inside the description of the evidence.
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