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All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The va

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noboru
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All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The va [#permalink] New post   Updated on: 06 Jan 2019, 12:26
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All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The values of a social system are embodied in the prestige accorded persons who fill various economic roles. It is therefore unsurprising that, for any social system, the introduction of labor-saving technology that makes certain economic roles obsolete will tend to undermine the values in that social system.

Which one of the following can most reasonably be concluded on the basis of the information above?


(A) Social systems will have unchanging values if they are shielded from technological advancement.

(B) No type of technology will fail to undermine the values in a social system.

(C) A social system whose values are not susceptible to change would not be one in which technology can eliminate economic roles.

(D) A technologically advanced society will place little value on the prestige associated with an economic role.

(E) A technological innovation that is implemented in a social system foreign to the one in which it was developed will tend to undermine the foreign social system.
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Originally posted by noboru on 30 Sep 2009, 13:01.
Last edited by Bunuel on 06 Jan 2019, 12:26, edited 1 time in total.
Renamed the topic and edited the question.
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Re: All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The va [#permalink] New post   05 Aug 2012, 22:28
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skg wrote:
All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The values of a social system are embodied in the prestige accorded persons who fill various economic roles. It is therefore unsurprising that, for any social system, the introduction of labor-saving technology that makes certain economic roles obsolete will tend to undermine the values in that social system.

Which one of the following can most reasonably be concluded on the basis of the information above?

(A) Social systems will have unchanging values if they are shielded from technological advancement.

(B) No type of technology will fail to undermine the values in a social system.

(C) A social system whose values are not susceptible to change would not be one in which technology can eliminate economic roles.

(D) A technologically advanced society will place little value on the prestige associated with an economic role.

(E) A technological innovation that is implemented in a social system foreign to the one in which it was developed will tend to undermine the foreign social system.


The key to this question lies in realizing that all technology/technological innovations are not labor-saving and hence do not lead to disappearance of economic roles.
Options A, B, D and E talk about technology, not about labor-saving technology. Hence, none of them can be inferred.

(A) Social systems will have unchanging values if they are shielded from technological advancement.
Social systems' values could change due to other reasons so don't even think about this.

(B) No type of technology will fail to undermine the values in a social system.
All technology is not labor saving technology. So ignore it.

(C) A social system whose values are not susceptible to change would not be one in which technology can eliminate economic roles.
When economic roles are eliminated, values change. If values do not change, it means technology is not eliminating economic roles i.e. the society does not develop labor-saving economic-role-eliminating technology. This is correct.

(D) A technologically advanced society will place little value on the prestige associated with an economic role.
Again, a technologically advanced society doesn't mean there are no economic roles. The roles could be different from the roles in a labor intensive society.

(E) A technological innovation that is implemented in a social system foreign to the one in which it was developed will tend to undermine the foreign social system.
Technological innovation doesn't necessarily mean labor saving technological innovation so ignore it right away.
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Re: All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The va [#permalink] New post   06 Jul 2010, 23:20
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Answer is C.

Easy. just look at strong words and eliminate too strong statements. Only C remains.

(A) Social systems will have unchanging values if they are shielded from technological advancement. -too strong , sure ? can you predict future?

(B) No type of technology will fail to undermine the values in a social system. -too strong

(C) A social system whose values are not susceptible to change would not be one in which technology can eliminate economic roles. -Whenever we see 2 different nagative connotations expressed in one sentence in 2 diferrent ideas, it is basically done to complicate our reasoning.
C converted - A social system whose values are susceptible to change would be one in which technology can eliminate economic roles.
Technology can eliminate economic roles in social systems. = to to what is stated in stimuli.

(D) A technologically advanced society will place little value on the prestige associated with an economic role. -too strong , sure ? can you predict future?

(E) A technological innovation that is implemented in a social system foreign to the one in which it was developed will tend to undermine the foreign social system. - too strong.
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Re: All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The va [#permalink] New post   22 Jul 2010, 10:12
A. The stem talks about changes is social systems that are influenced by technologies. The social systems that are shielded from tech advancements will not change... they still may change for other reasons.
B. Wrong. According to the stem, only the ones that erase a labor role.
C. Right. If values don't change, it means that technology did not eliminate economic roles, since according to the stem the values tend to change.
D. Makes sense, but still, what level of technological advance we need to make obsolete most economic roles?
E. It could be right, but it's too much of a stretch to conclude this from the stem given.
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Re: All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The va [#permalink] New post   22 Jul 2010, 16:53
I went for C.

(C) A social system whose values are not susceptible to change would not be one in which technology can eliminate economic roles. - The double negation can confuse things, but, IMO, that is exactly what question stem states. I think we can rewrite it like this, without the double negation: A social system whose values are susceptible to change would be one in which technology can eliminate economic roles.

(D) A technologically advanced society will place little value on the prestige associated with an economic role. - The stem clearly says that "the introduction of labor-saving technology that makes certain economic roles obsolete". Seems to me that only some roles will lost prestige. Therefore, it is still possible to have some prestigious roles even in a technologically advanced society.
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Re: All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The va [#permalink] New post   29 Jul 2010, 23:52
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All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The values of a social system are embodied in the prestige accorded persons who fill various economic roles. It is therefore unsurprising that, for any social system, the introduction of labor-saving technology that makes certain economic roles obsolete will tend to undermine the values in that social system.

value 1( 100 points )
Value 2( 100 points ) ------- all Social System ( 100 )
Value 3( 100 points )
Value 4( 100 points )
ex:-
value 1( 100 points )
Value 2( 100 points ) ------- all Social System ( 70 )
Value 3( 100 points )
Value 4( 20 points ) ( introducing labor saving tech --- reduce the labor work )

Which one of the following can most reasonably be concluded on the basis of the information above?

(A) Social systems will have unchanging values if they are shielded from technological advancement.
Since,introducing technology is one of the factors & There may be many other factor that affect the labor, we cant say this is true
(B) No type of technology will fail to undermine the values in a social system.
technology do have effect on Social system. It is wrong answer
(C) A social system whose values are not susceptible to change would not be one in which technology can eliminate economic roles.
It is mentioned that " technology may affect the social system". If social system can't be affect by any thing definitely technology can't have any control over Social system.It is correct answer
(D) A technologically advanced society will place little value on the prestige associated with an economic role.
Junk answer
(E) A technological innovation that is implemented in a social system foreign to the one in which it was developed will tend to undermine the foreign social system.Junk Answer
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Re: All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The va [#permalink] New post   08 Oct 2010, 08:04
I narrowed this down to C and D before going with C. I think the key thing to remember is that the passage states that "labor-saving technology that makes certain economic roles obsolete" will tend to undermine values - not ALL technology, just that particular subset of technology.

skg wrote:
All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The values of a social system are embodied in the prestige accorded persons who fill various economic roles. It is therefore unsurprising that, for any social system, the introduction of labor-saving technology that makes certain economic roles obsolete will tend to undermine the values in that social system.
Which one of the following can most reasonably be concluded on the basis of the information above?

(A) Social systems will have unchanging values if they are shielded from technological advancement. Not necessarily true - the passage doesn't state that ONLY technology will change values.

(B) No type of technology will fail to undermine the values in a social system. False - the passage states that labor-saving technology will change values, not ALL technology. So there certainly can be types of technology that don't make economic roles obsolete, thereby undermining the values.

(C) A social system whose values are not susceptible to change would not be one in which technology can eliminate economic roles. Let's reword this to make it a bit more clear: "A social system whose values are not susceptible to change would be one in which technology cannot eliminate economic roles." So, in other words, if a social system's values cannot be changed, then it can't possibly be subject to those kinds of technology that would undermine it's values and thus cause change. This logically follows from the passage.

To put it into logic form, the article states A -> B, where A is "If labor-saving technology that makes certain economic roles obsolete is introduced", and B is "then it will undermine the values of the social system." C then states ~B -> ~A: "If the values of a social system cannot be undermined, then technology that makes certain economic roles obsolete cannot be introduced." This is the logical contrapositive, which is equivalent to the original statement.

(D) A technologically advanced society will place little value on the prestige associated with an economic role. Thought about this one for a while, but once again we're only given the fact that labor-saving technology will undermine the values of economic roles - not ALL technology. A society which has a lot of technology doesn't NECESSARILY have labor-saving technology, so this can't definitively be concluded.

(E) A technological innovation that is implemented in a social system foreign to the one in which it was developed will tend to undermine the foreign social system. Definitely doesn't follow.
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Re: All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The va [#permalink] New post   13 Mar 2017, 00:31
vikasp99 wrote:
All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The values of a social system are embodied in the prestige accorded persons who fill various economic roles. It is therefore unsurprising that, for any social system, the introduction of labor-saving technology that makes certain economic roles obsolete will tend to undermine the values in that social system.

Which one of the following can most reasonably be concluded on the basis of the information above?

(A) Social systems will have unchanging values if they are shielded from technological advancement.

(B) No type of technology will fail to undermine the values in a social system.

(C) A social system whose values are not susceptible to change would not be one in which technology can eliminate economic roles.

(D) A technologically advanced society will place little value on the prestige associated with an economic role.

(E) A technological innovation that is implemented in a social system foreign to the one in which it was developed will tend to undermine the foreign social system.



(A) Social systems will have unchanging values if they are shielded from technological advancement. It cant be inferred.

(B) No type of technology will fail to undermine the values in a social system. We are only concerned with labor saving technology not any kind of technology

(C) A social system whose values are not susceptible to change would not be one in which technology can eliminate economic roles. this is the negated statement of the conclusion.Hence Correct

(D) A technologically advanced society will place little value on the prestige associated with an economic role.We know it places little value in the social system nothing is said about prestige of the role

(E) A technological innovation that is implemented in a social system foreign to the one in which it was developed will tend to undermine the foreign social system.
Out of scope .We dont know how it treats the foreign system
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Re: All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The va [#permalink] New post   04 Aug 2017, 12:22
Tricky one. The prompt describes the place of economic roles in a social system and then says that technology that disturbs those economic roles will underine the social system.

Many of the answer choices mention key words but answer C is correct. If the social system does not change, then the presence of economic role-disrupting technology is not present. If it were present, we know from the prompt that the social system would be undermined.
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Re: All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The va [#permalink] New post   07 May 2019, 01:21
I completely understand that C is the correct answer. My concern lies in the leap of faith I had in the logical derivations.

If X, then Y. Then we can also say, if not Y, then not X.


Similarly technology will undermine social values.
So
"Not undermining social values" -> no technology.

A precisely states this.


A) Social systems will have unchanging values if they are shielded from technological advancement.


Can you plug the holes in my reasoning and help me understand the error??

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Re: All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The va [#permalink] New post   26 Feb 2024, 22:48
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Re: All social systems are based upon a division of economic roles. The va [#permalink]
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