Columnist: A democratic society cannot function unless strong bonds of

Question

Columnist:  A democratic society cannot function unless strong bonds of mutual trust have formed among its citizens. Only by participation in civic organizations, political parties, and other groups outside the family can such bonds be formed and strengthened. Thus, it is obvious that the widespread reliance on e-mail and Internet social networking for interaction has an inherently corrosive effect on democracy.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the columnist's argument depends?

a) Civic organizations cannot usefully advance their goals by using social networking.
b) Anyone who relies on e-mail and social networking for interaction is unable to form a strong bond of mutual trust with another citizen.
c) Relying on e-mail and social networking for interaction generally makes people less likely to participate in groups outside their families.
d) People who rely on e-mail and social networking for interaction are generally closer to their families than are those who do not.
e) Meetings and other forms of personal interaction strengthen, rather than weaken, democratic institutions.

Source: McGraw Hill LSAT

sobby · Answer

Its between B and C 
B i felt is way too extreme and we are actually concentrating on Group outside the family ..
C is that assumption...

veteranrookie · Answer

I also agree with C now

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Kanika3agg · Answer

Columnist: A democratic society cannot function unless strong bonds of mutual trust have formed among its citizens. Only by participation in civic organizations, political parties, and other groups outside the family can such bonds be formed and strengthened. Thus, it is obvious that the widespread reliance on e-mail and Internet social networking for interaction has an inherently corrosive effect on democracy.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the columnist's argument depends?

Pre -thinking -
Conclusion - Email and internet social networking has corrosive effect on democracy.
Argument - A democratic society cannot function without strong bonds of mutual trust.
Argument - By participating in civic organisations, political parties and other groups outside the family can such bonds be formed and strengthened.

Assumption 1 - Email and Internet social networking dont allow strong bonds to be formed.
Assumption 2 - We cant participate in events outside family and use email and social networking at the same time.

a) Civic organizations cannot usefully advance their goals by using social networking. -   We are talking about adverse effects of email and social networking on democracy. 
b) Anyone who relies on e-mail and social networking for interaction is unable to form a strong bond of mutual trust with another citizen. -  This is true, can be taken into consideration. 
c) Relying on e-mail and social networking for interaction generally makes people less likely to participate in groups outside their families. -  This is also true, can be taken into consideration 
d) People who rely on e-mail and social networking for interaction are generally closer to their families than are those who do not. -  Even if they are close their families, that doesnt mean they cant have strong bonds for people outside family. We are concerned about bonds outside family. 
e) Meetings and other forms of personal interaction strengthen, rather than weaken, democratic institutions. -  Can be true but we are concerned about emails' effects on democracy more.

Now, between B and C, B has very strong language and therefore, it is eliminated and C is chosen.

gmatenthureturns · Answer

Hi,

Hoping that somebody can help with a bit more reasoning as to why B is incorrect. I dont consider extreme language as a good enough reason to eliminate an option.

Reason I eliminated C is that "less likely" does not mean "dont". That means that people using email and internet may still participate in groups and thereby strengthen democracy. So C is not necessarily true.

Hovkial · Answer

The wording differences between b and c (which are the only two pluasible answers) provide clues.
 
B indicates that "anyone" is "unable" to form bonds with another citizen.
 
C indicates that reliance on email and SM makes it "less likely" for people to participate in groups outside their families. 
 
C is supported by the question stem. The stem makes the indirect point that overreliance has caused corrosive effect. It does not state that such overreliance will make people unable to form any sort of bonds. 
 
C references "groups" while B references an individual. Referring back to the stem, the thrust of the targeted parties us clear. It refers to groups and not certain individuals.

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Kamal1 · Answer

Follow this portion of the argument

" Only by participation in civic organizations, political parties, and other groups outside the family can such bonds be formed and strengthened. "
Option B is a restatement of this fact as it has been clearly stated that there is no other option than participation in social groups that will strengthen democracy

Hence it is wrong

Option C correctly links Reliance on e-mails to Participation in social organisations

Priyanka2018 · Answer

I believe B is incorrect because if we negate the option
it will give - Anyone who relies on e-mail and social networking for interaction is  able  to form a strong bond of mutual trust with another citizen.
So we are basically questioning their ability, of course they have the ability to form bond with other.
But the question is whether they will do. If they do then it will hurt the argument otherwise it will not.
So there is still some ambiguity here.

C on the other hand directly hits the argument. By negation 
Email blah blah ....will not make them less likely to participate....
They can do both simultaneously .

aniket16c · Answer

Dear  VeritasKarishma  and  nightblade354 
Can you please explain the argument by negating options B and option C

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auradediligodo · Answer

Columnist:  A democratic society cannot function unless strong bonds of mutual trust have formed among its citizens. Only by participation in civic organizations, political parties, and other groups outside the family can such bonds be formed and strengthened. Thus, it is obvious that the widespread reliance on e-mail and Internet social networking for interaction has an inherently corrosive effect on democracy.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the columnist's argument depends?

Assumption question

Pre-thinking

Falsification scenario  : What if mails and social networks help people to participate more on such activities outside the family?

Assumption:   Email and social networks does not help people to participate more on such activities outside the family

POE:

a) Civic organizations cannot usefully advance their goals by using social networking.
 Not a must be true statement

b) Anyone who relies on e-mail and social networking for interaction is unable to form a strong bond of mutual trust with another citizen.
 This option is too extreme because of the usage of  ANYONE . The conclusion of the argument its about emails and social networks being corrosive but this conclusion does not say that each single person will have difficulties in creating bonds because of the 2 latters. Maybe the majority of people will be impacted negatively but someone might be left unaffected

c)   Relying on e-mail and social networking for interaction generally makes people less likely to participate in groups outside their families.
 Here we can see the corrosive effect on society and this option is in line with our pre-thought assumption

d) People who rely on e-mail and social networking for interaction are generally closer to their families than are those who do not.
 out of scope

e) Meetings and other forms of personal interaction strengthen, rather than weaken, democratic institutions.
 out of scope

gvij2017 · Answer

My point is here for this CR problem. 
Democracy can function only with strong bond and trust 
Bond and trust can be formed only by participating social group activities.

Mind here the use of ONLY!

Between B and C, 
Negated B says that anyone is able to form strong bond and trust through mails with other person.
But no social interaction still lacks. The democracy still can't function properly.

Negated C says that reliance over mails makes people more likely to participate in social gatherings. 
This is impacting argument. C is assumption.

KarishmaB · Answer

Strong bonds of mutual trust are necessary for a democratic society. 
Only by participation in civic organizations, political parties, and other groups outside the family can such bonds be formed.

Conclusion: Widespread reliance on e-mail and Internet social networking for interaction has an inherently corrosive effect on democracy.

The argument says that trust is necessary for democracy and participation in civic orgs in the only way to form trust. So reliance on email is bad for democracy. The premises don't mention email but the conclusion concludes about it. So there is an assumption that people's reliance on email doesn't allow participation in civic orgs.

a) Civic organizations cannot usefully advance their goals by using social networking.

How civic orgs use social networking is irrelevant.

b) Anyone who relies on e-mail and social networking for interaction is unable to form a strong bond of mutual trust with another citizen.

Note that we don't need to say that no one who relies on email can form trust bonds. Even if some people are able to do it, our conclusion can still hold. We don't need to assume that no one can do it. Our conclusion is more generic - widespread reliance... So it is saying "usually people who use emails cannot form strong bonds"

Negation of (B): "some people who rely on email can form strong trust bonds". 
This doesn't break our conclusion. Widespread reliance on email could still be bad for democracy.

c) Relying on e-mail and social networking for interaction generally makes people less likely to participate in groups outside their families.

Correct. This is the assumption. Replying on email usually makes people less likely to participate outside. Since participating outside is the only way of forming trust bonds, this is bad for democracy.

Negation of (C): Relying on e-mail does not make people less likely to participate in groups outside their families.
This breaks our conclusion. If even after relying on emails, people can participate outside (and hence form trust bonds), then relying on email is not bad for democracy.

d) People who rely on e-mail and social networking for interaction are generally closer to their families than are those who do not.

We are not comparing family ties of people. Irrelevant.

e) Meetings and other forms of personal interaction strengthen, rather than weaken, democratic institutions.

No reference of email, the missing link.

Answer (C)

kaladin123 · Answer

I fell for trap B.

Any pointers on choosing between B & C? I'm thinking that B is too specific ("Anyone").

sssanskaar · Answer

Straight between B and C.

B is problematic because option B uses the word "anyone". We don't need all the people using email and social networking to have a corrosive effect on democracy. Even if some people do the same, it will have the same effect.

Option C wins.

Strategix · Answer

Hi  GMATNinja   MartyMurray   Bunuel , can some expert pls help me understand the error in my thinking.

The conclusion states "Thus, it is obvious that the widespread reliance on e-mail and Internet social networking for interaction has an  inherently corrosive effect on democracy ". 
I interpreted the "corrosive effect" mentioned here as something that degrades/worsens. While I did not pick E for another reason, choice E seemed attractive to me because none of the other answer choices say anything about degrading/worsening.

srik410 · Answer

Interesting to see people who can't negate B properly go for "too strong" in their analysis. Some  golden rules for negation  I learnt from this question to carry forward.

Type-1 : When you have quantifiers + verb -> Always negate the quantifier and leave the verb alone
Original: " All  guests  ate  the cake."
✅ Correct Negation: " Not all  guests  ate  the cake." (or "Some guests did not eat the cake.") Because Not all As are Bs is logically equivalent to Some As are not Bs.
❌ Common Mistake: " All  guests  did not eat  the cake." (This is incorrect because it means no one ate the cake, which is a different statement.)

The same principle applies for all the quantifiers: No, none, anyone, some, few, many etc.
The same principle applies when the verb is paired with modal verbs: must, shall, will, should, would, can, could, may, and might etc

Another example is " Any  guest  can eat  the cake"
✅ Correct Negation: " Not all  guests  can eat  the cake" (or "Some guests cannot eat the cake")

Type-2 : Options with Independent clauses. Ex: Sentences with because -> throw because/since etc out of the window
Original: "The game was cancelled because it was raining."
✅ Correct Negation: "The game was not cancelled."
❌ Incorrect Negation: "The game was cancelled because it was not raining."

Type-3 : Conditional statements: If A ->B, then show If A, then B may not happen
Original: "If a product is high quality, then it will sell well.". 
✅ Correct Negation: "A product can be high quality, and yet not sell well." (ie Just show If A, then B can happen)
❌ Incorrect Multiple Negation: "If a product is not high quality, then it will not sell well." (Shouldn't negate both A and B)

Type-3 : Compound statements:-> A and B -> Not both (A and B)
Original Statement: "An applicant must speak French  and  English"

✅ Correct Negation: "An applicant may not need both of those languages."
❌ Incorrect Negation: "An applicant must not speak French and English"

Now try this, 
If a server fails its security audit, then  all  administrators on that server  must reset  their passwords  and  enable two-factor authentication.
✅ Correct Negations:
"A server can fail its security audit, and yet not all administrators on that server must reset their passwords and enable two-factor authentication"
"A server can fail its security audit, and yet some administrator on that server does not have to reset both their password and enable two-factor authentication."

Su1206 · Answer

Option B and option C are very close.

However, option B uses much stronger language. "Unable" means completely not able to. I think the author is not trying to say not able to, rather he is trying to imply lower likely hood.

That is exactly what option C suggests.

I got this one wrong, but after looking the answer, i agree that C is better than B

Columnist: A democratic society cannot function unless strong bonds of

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Columnist: A democratic society cannot function unless strong bonds of

Prep Toolkit

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

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