Akela wrote:
Economist: A country’s rapid emergence from an economic recession requires substantial new investment in that country’s economy. Since people’s confidence in the economic policies of their country is a precondition for any new investment, countries that put collective goals before individuals’ goals cannot emerge quickly from an economic recession.
Which one of the following, if assumed, enables the economist’s conclusion to be properly drawn?
(A) No new investment occurs in any country that does not emerge quickly from an economic recession.
(B) Recessions in countries that put collective goals before individuals’ goals tend not to affect the country’s people’s support for their government’s policies.
(C) If the people in a country that puts individuals’ goals first are willing to make new investments in their country’s economy, their country will emerge quickly from an economic recession.
(D) People in countries that put collective goals before individuals’ goals lack confidence in the economic policies of their countries.
(E) A country’s economic policies are the most significant factor determining whether that country’s economy will experience a recession.
EXPLANATION FROM Fox LSAT
Both “requires” and “precondition” indicate a necessary condition. So the given facts are 1) rapid emergence from recession —> substantial new investment, and 2) new investment —> people have confidence in economic policies of their country. These two statements could properly be linked together as 1+2) rapid emergence from recession —> substantial new investment —> people have confidence in economic policies of their country.
In other words, in order to emerge rapidly from a recession, people must have confidence in the economic policies of their country. Why? Well, because if they don’t have confidence then there won’t be new investment, and without new investment there won’t be rapid emergence from the recession.
The conclusion says, “Countries that put collective goals before individuals’ goals cannot emerge quickly from a recession.” We’re asked to find an answer that “enables the economist’s conclusion to be properly drawn.” This means, “Find a sufficient assumption,” or, “Prove the argument’s conclusion to be correct.” There are really only a couple ways to do this. The problem with the argument is that “countries that put collective goals before individuals’ goals” is a totally new concept that wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the argument. So the only way this argument can possibly be logically sound is if we add a new premise that links that concept to the other concepts in the argument. I see two ways to prove the argument:
1) “People lack confidence in the economic policies of their country in countries that put collective goals before individuals’ goals.” Or the contrapositive of that statement: “If the people have confidence in the economic policies of their country, then the country does not put collective goals before individuals’ goals.” One of those is probably going to be the right answer.
But we could also just ignore the “confidence” premise entirely and use only the first premise to prove the conclusion. 2) “Countries that put collective goals before individual goals never have new investment,” or the contrapositive of that statement, “Any country which has new investment does not put collective goals before individual goals.”
One of those four statements (well, two statements, really, with two contrapositives) will be the correct answer. There is simply no other way to prove the argument correct from the given facts.
A) Nah. This doesn’t link in the thing about collective goals vs. individual goals, so there’s no way this bridges the gap.
B) This has lots of the right words, but they’re jumbled together in a way that just doesn’t do what we need them to do. The best way to avoid this answer is to know exactly what you’re looking for before you look at the answer choices. Trying to figure out what’s
wrong with this answer choice really isn’t the right way to go about it. It’s wrong because it’s not exactly what we need, and that’s good enough to eliminate it on a Sufficient Assumption question.
C) This provides a sufficient condition for emerging from a recession, and since it’s a sufficient condition for success, it could only ever be used to prove that a country
will emerge quickly. Our desired conclusion is “won’t emerge quickly” and this premise could never get us there.
D) Yes, this exactly matches one of our predictions. If this answer is true, then the conclusion of the argument must also be true. That’s what we needed.
E) Nothing here about collective vs. individual goals, so we don’t have to even think about it.
Our answer is D, because it’s exactly what we predicted. On Sufficient Assumption questions, we can frequently predict the correct answer with certainty