PrepTest 155, Section 2, Question 13
Commentator: The worldwide oil crisis of 1973 was(59 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the commentator's(12 more words not shown)
- Afails to consider(17 more words not shown)
- Bpresumes, without providing(18 more words not shown)
- Crests on using(7 more words not shown)
- Dfails to establish(13 more words not shown)
- Efails to consider(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
They made more money. Does that mean they caused the crisis?
The opening sentence presents a confident story: oil companies and oil-producing countries deliberately restricted supply to raise prices. It is easy to read that as established background. But the next sentence says this is shown by their increased profits and incomes. Now we can see that the collusion story is the conclusion we're being asked to accept.
The evidence shows that these parties benefited. It doesn't show how the situation arose. They could have been fortunate beneficiaries of a shortage they didn't create. Or some other change could have contributed to their increased earnings. We don't have to establish the true explanation to see that profit alone doesn't demonstrate a coordinated plan.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, keep that jump in mind: the commentator treats benefiting from an event as evidence of helping bring it about. The missing possibility is that a party can gain from something it didn't cause.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The companies' profits and the countries' incomes increased after the crisis. Even if the crisis benefited them, they could have benefited without colluding to create it. The commentator needs evidence connecting them to the deliberate restriction of supply, not merely evidence that they ended up better off.
- B
The argument doesn't require these parties to be the only beneficiaries. Other people could also have made money, and the commentator could still claim the companies and countries colluded. The problem is the unsupported connection between benefiting and causing, not an assumption that nobody else benefited.
- C
Profit has its ordinary financial meaning here: earnings after costs. The argument doesn't switch between two meanings of the word to reach its conclusion. The fact that profits increased is clear enough; what that increase establishes is the issue.
- D
A surplus before the crisis isn't required to argue that there was no real shortage during it. There could have been enough oil without an earlier excess. More importantly, showing an earlier surplus would still not establish that these particular parties coordinated a restriction of supply. D misses the leap from earnings to collusion.
- E
The commentator isn't rejecting a possible causal relationship merely because events happened together. The argument is too quick to attribute responsibility: it treats the favorable financial results as evidence that the beneficiaries engineered the crisis. E criticizes a refusal to see causation, which isn't what happens here.
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