The role of the Uplandian supreme court is to protect all human rights

Question

The role of the Uplandian supreme court is to protect all human rights against abuses of government power. Since the constitution of Uplandia is not explicit about all human rights, the supreme court must sometimes resort to principles outside the explicit provisions of the constitution in justifying its decisions. However, human rights will be subject to the whim of whoever holds judicial power unless the supreme court is bound to adhere to a single objective standard, namely, the constitution. Therefore, nothing but the explicit provisions of the constitution can be used to justify the court’s decisions. Since these conclusions are inconsistent with each other, it cannot be true that the role of the Uplandian supreme court is to protect all human rights against abuses of government power.

The reasoning that leads to the conclusion that the first sentence in the passage is false is flawed because the argument

(A) ignores data that offer reasonable support for a general claim and focuses on a single example that argues against that claim

(B) seeks to defend a view on the grounds that the view is widely held and the decisions based on that view are often accepted as correct

(C) rejects a claim as false on the grounds that those who make that claim could profit if that claim is accepted by others

(D) makers an unwarranted assumption that what is true of each member of a group taken separately is also true of the group as a whole

(E) concludes that a particular premise is false when it is equally possible for that premise to be true and some other premise false

Thelionking1234 · Accepted Answer

This is one of the toughest abstract questions I have seen

, and I did not find detailed explanation so I thought it is worth to share my view.

It is a long passage

so Let's break the argument first. (In exam we can resort to some logical indicators to write the gist of the argument. Personally I recommend to write main conclusion

so you do not get deceived by wrong answer choices commonly known as traps in GMAT.) Premise 1: The role of the Uplandian supreme court is to protect all human rights against abuses of government power. Premise 2: Since the constitution of Uplandia is not explicit about all human rights. Conclusion 1: the supreme court must sometimes resort to principles outside the explicit provisions of the constitution in justifying its decisions. Premise 3: However, human rights will be subject to the whim of whoever holds judicial power unless the supreme court is bound to adhere to a single objective standard, namely, the constitution. Conclusion 2: Therefore, nothing but the explicit provisions of the constitution can be used to justify the court’s decisions. Premise 4: Since these conclusions are inconsistent with each other. Main conclusion: It cannot be true that the role of the Uplandian supreme court is to protect all human rights against abuses of government power. Now as we have understood the argument in quite detail, let's read question stem and see what exactly is asked.

Question stem: The reasoning that leads to the conclusion that the first sentence in the passage is false is flawed because the argument. So we need to answer why main conclusion is flawed?

Prephrase:

There are 4 Premises and 3 Conclusions. If you re-read them you will notice that either premises can be true and based on that different conclusions can be inferred. Author does not have proved anything explicitly. Now let's analyze answer choices.

(A) ignores data that offer reasonable support for a general claim and focuses on a single example that argues against that claim

- There is no data that supports general claim. Wrong (B) seeks to defend a view on the grounds that the view is widely held and the decisions based on that view are often accepted as correct

- Widely held? No not at all mentioned in the argument. Wrong (C) rejects a claim as false on the grounds that those who make that claim could profit if that claim is accepted by others

- No profit thing is mentioned in the argument. Wrong (D) makers an unwarranted assumption that what is true of each member of a group taken separately is also true of the group as a whole

- No. Single to group shift or vice versa is not the case here. Wrong (E) concludes that a particular premise is false when it is equally possible for that premise to be true and some other premise false

- Yes correct. As I said author has not explicitly mentioned which premise is 100% correct, there are equal chances of both the premises to be correct.

anubhavshankar81 · Answer

Option A -> Irrelevant to the overarching narrative
Option B -> Diametrically opposite to what the stem states
Option C -> Good candidate. Keep a pin on it
Option D -> Out of scope. No assumptions whatsoever have been made
Option E -> As per the question stem this seems to be the most apt

Pay attention to the phrase - "first sentence in the passage is false is flawed", keeping that in context explicitly, C is eliminated. Hence, E is the answer IMO

peace31 · Answer

How is Option A wrong. The conclusion is doing what A is suggesting.

Saharsh95 · Answer

Interpret first half of Option A:

"ignores data that offer reasonable support for a general claim" --> The fact that the role of the Uplandian court is to protect people against abuse of Government Power is the first Claim " itself"  and  NOT the "data supporting the claim".

Hence A is ruled out as the argument does not provide any "data" in "support" of that claim, it just states that claim.

Saasingh · Answer

To explain why E is correct in simplest terms.

X is a claim. But Y is true. X and Y are inconsistent, so X CANNOT be true.

As is clearly visible in this simple deconstructed version of the argument, we have taken Y to be the absolute truth, and this is a flawed assumption. It is equally probable for X to be an absolute truth and Y to be false! That's exactly what E option says.

Hope it helps. Wouldn't mind kudos, if it did

Regards,
Saakhi

Regards, Saakhi

Bambi2021 · Answer

A is close. The argument is not focused on  one single example  but on instances that are not common - cases where human rights are not explicitly mentioned in the constitutions.

unraveled · Answer

The role of the Uplandian supreme court is to protect all human rights against abuses of government power. Since the constitution of Uplandia is not explicit about all human rights, the supreme court must sometimes resort to principles outside the explicit provisions of the constitution in justifying its decisions. However, human rights will be subject to the whim of whoever holds judicial power unless the supreme court is bound to adhere to a single objective standard, namely, the constitution. Therefore, nothing but the explicit provisions of the constitution can be used to justify the court’s decisions. Since these conclusions are inconsistent with each other, it cannot be true that the role of the Uplandian supreme court is to protect all human rights against abuses of government power.

The reasoning that leads to the conclusion that the first sentence in the passage is false is flawed because the argument

(A) ignores data that offer reasonable support for a general claim and focuses on a single example that argues against that claim

(B) seeks to defend a view on the grounds that the view is widely held and the decisions based on that view are often accepted as correct

(C) rejects a claim as false on the grounds that those who make that claim could profit if that claim is accepted by others

(D) makers an unwarranted assumption that what is true of each member of a group taken separately is also true of the group as a whole

(E) concludes that a particular premise is false when it is equally possible for that premise to be true and some other premise false

Show Answer

Official Answer

E

Though already nicely explained in earlier post, this post is an attempt to How to solve such heavily dosed passage?!!! Please see that underlined text is our main conclusion that claims that the claim made in highlighted text is false. And how does it reaches such a conclusion; it gives a series of argument in between based on which the main conclusion is made. The blue text are the keywords that give direction to the passage. First "since" gives one argument and "however" gives another that somewhat gives and opposing argument to the previous argument. After which an intermediate conclusion is made. For me the most keyword is ''therefore" because it gives an intermediate conclusion after which the main conclusion is made. Hence this is the key to our right answer choice. Frankly, if one understands the passage properly picking right answer becomes easier otherwise too difficult. The extreme claim by using "nothing but" hints that may be one choice is considered in the passage as true over other. And this is what E perfectly conveys. I did understood the passage but the abstractness of the answer choices made things miserable. Answer E.

Raman109 · Answer

Understanding the argument - 
The role of the Uplandian supreme court is to protect all human rights against abuses of government power. - a conclusion (A).

Since the constitution of Uplandia is not explicit about all human rights, the supreme court must sometimes resort to principles outside the explicit provisions of the constitution in justifying its decisions. - Premise

However, human rights will be subject to the whim of whoever holds judicial power unless the supreme court is bound to adhere to a single objective standard, namely, the constitution. - This means the Supreme Court is bound to adhere to the Constitution. --> Human rights will not be the subject of whoever holds judicial power. Or we can interpret it as "If the Supreme Court is not bound to adhere to the constitution, human rights will be subjects to the whims of whoever is in the judicial power." This sentence brings the contrast from the previous premise. The previous premise states that as the constitution of U is not explicit about human rights, the Supreme Court must resort to principles outside the explicit provisions. But this sentence shares the contrast using "however" that if they say the judge is not bound by the constitution, their judgments may be arbitrary depending on the whims of the individual judge.

Therefore, nothing but the explicit provisions of the constitution can be used to justify the court’s decisions. - another conclusion (B) in light of the contrast.

Since these conclusions are inconsistent with each other, it cannot be true that the role of the Uplandian supreme court is to protect all human rights against abuses of government power. - Main conclusion. Basically, it says that since A and B are inconsistent, A is wrong.

The reasoning that leads to the conclusion that the first sentence in the passage is false is flawed because the argument

(A) ignores data that offer reasonable support for a general claim and focuses on a single example that argues against that claim - No data is provided or ignored. Out of scope.

(B) seeks to defend a view on the grounds that the view is widely held and the decisions based on that view are often accepted as correct - no defensive and no widely held view. Out of scope.

(C) rejects a claim as false on the grounds that those who make that claim could profit if that claim is accepted by others - No sense of such profit. Out of scope.

(D) makers an unwarranted assumption that what is true of each member of a group taken separately is also true of the group as a whole - The argument doesn't apply this logic of talking about one person and extending to the group.

(E) concludes that a particular premise is false (conclusion A, which becomes the premise for the main conclusion) when it is equally possible for that premise to be true (a conclusion A, which is the premise for the main conclusion, could be correct) and some other premise false (a conclusion B which is the premise for the main conclusion could be false)- ok.

The role of the Uplandian supreme court is to protect all human rights

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The role of the Uplandian supreme court is to protect all human rights

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

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My Rewards