Economist: Global recessions can never be prevented, for they could be

Question

Economist: Global recessions can never be prevented, for they could be prevented only if they were predictable. Yet economists, using the best techniques at their disposal, consistently fail to accurately predict global recessions.

The economist's argument is most vulnerable to the criticism that:

(A) Presupposed in a premise the conclusion that it purports to establish

(B) Fails to establish that economists claim to be able to accurately predict global recessions

(C) Treats the predictability of an event, which is required for the event to be preventable, as a characteristic that assures its prevention

(D) Fails to address the possibility that the techniques available to economists for the predicting of global recessions will significantly improve

(E) Implicitly bases an inference that something will not occur solely on the information that its occurrence is not predictable

KeyurJoshi · Answer

nightblade354   GMATNinja   Abhishek009  Hi, having solved a few CR questions I tried to stick with the specifics of the argument and eliminated D and used POE with a vague idea and chose C. Can anyone explain the reasoning and why C is incorrect? Thanks.

nightblade354 · Answer

Hi,

(C) is wrong because it is claiming a sufficiency - necessary condition confusion, which is not the case. The argument goes as follows:

Preventable --> Predictable

In order for (C) to be correct, we would need an argument, after the above, to then argue that:  Preventable  -->  Predictable . But this isn't what it is saying, so it is not correct.

tanu11 · Answer

isn't option d out of focus ?
even if it improves, it might fail ?
i am confused with the OA

nightblade354 · Answer

Think about the conclusion of the argument, which is that global recessions can never be prevented. Why are they unpreventable according to the argument? Because we cannot predict them. Well, if we can predict them, we can prevent them. The argument assumes that this will never improve, which is an error in the argument a vulnerability that the answer choice hits on.

abracadabra123 · Answer

I didn't understand the content presented in the paragraph, it didn't seem to logically follow. Could someone please explain it with answer choices.

deepdinda95 · Answer

Need an explanation why C is not the answer

RonTargetTestPrep · Answer

Choice C says that the argument confuses "predict" and "prevent" (= basically treats these two as though they were the same).

That choice is incorrect because the argument doesn't do any such thing. Is there a point in the argument where you think the narrator is confusing prediction with prevention?

KingOfTheCheckers · Answer

Hi, I understand why C is not the correct answer, but could you provide the official answer? I'd like to see how to narrow down my answer to D.

unraveled · Answer

Economist:  Global recessions can never be prevented, for they could be prevented only if they were predictable.  Yet economists, using the best techniques at their disposal, consistently fail to accurately predict global recessions.

The economist's argument is most vulnerable to the criticism that:

(A) Presupposed in a premise the conclusion that it purports to establish

(B) Fails to establish that  economists claim to be able to accurately predict  global recessions - WRONG. Altogether goes against premise.

(C) Treats the predictability of an event, which is required for the event to be  preventable , as a characteristic that assures its prevention - WRONG. Predictable and preventable are different.

(D) Fails to address the possibility that the techniques available to economists for the predicting of global recessions will significantly improve

(E)  Implicitly  bases an inference that something will not occur solely on the information that its occurrence is not predictable - WORNG. Like B, this is going against premise.

The highlighted test established that in the past global recession has not been predicted, thus prevented. So, in future as well things would not change. The problem lies here itself. Till this point things were okay. 
Although I could identify conclusion(highlighted text), I fell for 2nd best option - A. Only if one realises that future may bring improvements, D looks good. Otherwise, if past only considered A looks good IMO. Not sure how D could be an answer.

Economist: Global recessions can never be prevented, for they could be

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Economist: Global recessions can never be prevented, for they could be

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615 to 715 in 15 Days (Ria's Strategies)

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