Political theorist: For all of its members to be strong in foreign pol

Question

Political theorist: For all of its members to be strong in foreign policy, an alliance of countries must respond aggressively to problems. An alliance will do so only if every member of the alliance perceives the problems as grave. But the European Union countries will not all perceive a problem as grave unless they all agree that it threatens their alliance's economy. Thus, not all of the member countries of the European Union will be strong in foreign policy.

The conclusion drawn above follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?

(A) Countries that refuse to join alliances generally respond more aggressively to problems than do countries that do join alliances.

(B) Countries become less aggressive in foreign policy if greater wealth leads them to think that they have more to lose by responding to problems aggressively.

(C) Problems that appear to some member countries of the European Union to threaten the alliance's economy will not appear so to others.

(D) European Union member countries that fail to perceive the economic relevance of problems are generally weak in foreign policy.

(E) Alliances that are economically beneficial for a given country are not necessarily beneficial with regard to foreign policy.

SaiPavanR · Answer

The scope of conclusion is European Union countries. The answer options should talk about it.
A, B and E are gone.

Left with C and D.
 negating option C -> All the countries in EU perceive the problems as threat to their economy. This means, there is a chance to perceive problem as grave. If it can be perceived as grave, then they can respond aggressively, which means there is a chance for all members of EU to be strong in foreign policy. This is against the conclusion about the countries in EU.

Hence negating C will destroy the argument. Hence C.

Let me know if I am wrong in my approach.

Thanks

rhngeorge · Answer

Is option C the right answer here?

Bunuel · Answer

EXPLANATION FROM Fox LSAT

The conclusion here is, “Not all of the member countries of the European Union will be strong in foreign policy.” The question asks us to prove this conclusion using the facts given plus the correct answer choice. Here, we are asked to be attorneys for the political theorist. If all of the theorist’s evidence is true, what additional fact would force his conclusion to be true? To answer this question, we have to figure out where the hole is in the argument. A diagram might help:

Premise 1: All members strong in foreign policy —> alliance must respond aggressively  
  Premise 2: Alliance responds aggressively —> every member perceives problems as grave Premise 3: EU countries perceive problem as grave —> all agree problem threatens economy  
  Conclusion: Not all EU countries will be strong in foreign policy

The three premises link together like this: All members strong in foreign policy —> alliance must respond aggressively —> every member perceives problems as grave —> all agree problem threatens economy.

The contrapositive of all this would be:

All agree problem threatens economy  —>  every member perceives problems as grave  —>  alliance must respond aggressively  —>  all members strong in foreign policy .

The conclusion then leaps to, “Not all EU countries will be strong in foreign policy.” I can think of a few facts that would prove this conclusion, given that all the premises are true:

My first prediction is, “Not all EU countries will agree that the problem threatens the economy.” If that’s true, then not every member perceives the problem is grave. Which means they won’t respond aggressively, which means that not all members will be strong.

My second prediction is, “Not every member perceives the problem is grave.” If that’s true, then they won’t respond aggressively, which means that not all members will be strong.

My third prediction is, “The alliance will not respond aggressively.” If that’s true, then not all members will be strong.

Any of these three predictions would prove the conclusion of the argument. They are all equally perfect.

A) What countries “generally” do isn’t helpful here. We need to  prove  that they will act in a certain way in this case. This answer isn’t strong enough to prove our point.

B) I don’t know what this means, and we shouldn’t care until we’ve read all five answer choices. Hopefully we’ll find an exact match, and won’t have to waste time deciphering this answer.

C) Ahh. If this is true, then it can’t possibly be true that all countries will perceive the problem is grave simultaneously. This matches our second prediction. This is perfect.

D) Nope, C was better.

E) Nope, C was better.

C is our answer. Sufficient Assumption questions almost always allow us to precisely predict the answer before going on to the answer choices. Work on it, and you’ll be rewarded.

unraveled · Answer

Political theorist: For all of its members to be strong in foreign policy, an alliance of countries must respond aggressively to problems. An alliance will do so only if every member of the alliance perceives the problems as grave. But the European Union countries will not all perceive a problem as grave unless they all agree that it threatens their alliance's economy. Thus, not all of the member countries of the European Union will be strong in foreign policy.

The conclusion drawn above follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?

Highlighted text is the conclusion.
Blue text is key to the core of the argument i.e. if they all don't agree to the graveness of the threats to economy as an alliance, they will not be aggressively responding to problems. Thus, countries would be all over the place as an entity, eventually signifying some countries would be weaker and some would be stronger in foreign policy.

(A) Countries that refuse to join alliances generally respond more aggressively to problems than do countries that do join alliances. - WRONG. A country joining alliance is altogether irrelevant here. The argument is set up beyond that point, if we understand it timeline-wise.

(B) Countries become less aggressive in foreign policy if greater wealth leads them to think that they have more to lose by responding to problems aggressively. - WRONG. This opens a whole lot of debatable issues for discussion. First, the red text may be possible in real world but here it has no significance. Second, does being less aggressive in foreign policy means weak in foreign policy. This one is more like a shell game type question for the simple reason that argument says aggressive response to problems leads to strong foreign policy, not aggressive response to problems to aggressive foreign policy.

(C) Problems that appear to some member countries of the European Union to threaten the alliance's economy will not appear so to others. - WRONG. Exactly the point. Problems definition changes from country to another. So, straight forward which makes is difficult.

(D) European Union member countries that fail to perceive the economic relevance of problems are generally weak in foreign policy. - WRONG. A long jump is made to make a generic statement. However, it's enticing.

(E) Alliances that are economically beneficial for a given country are not necessarily beneficial with regard to foreign policy. - WRONG. Not for what it states but we have a straight forward option available. Spent a lot of time understanding this one, however, this states, as i see it, something that may be coming in future - some sort of result.

Answer C.

(D) European Union member countries that fail to perceive the economic relevance of problems are generally weak in foreign policy. - WRONG. A long jump is made to make a generic statement. However, it's enticing. (E) Alliances that are economically beneficial for a given country are not necessarily beneficial with regard to foreign policy. - WRONG. Not for what it states but we have a straight forward option available. Spent a lot of time understanding this one, however, this states, as i see it, something that may be coming in future - some sort of result. Answer C.

Bunuel · Answer

EXPLANATION FROM POWER PREP

In this stimulus, the political theorist presents a series of conditional statements, which can be diagrammed as follows:

For an alliance to be strong, it must respond aggressively to problems:

AS --> RA

An alliance will respond aggressively only if every member perceived gravity:

RA --> PG

But the EU countries will not perceive a problem to be grave unless they all agree that it threatens their alliance’s economy:

PG --> ATAE

What we then have is the following chain of logic:
 AS --> RA --> PG --> ATAE

We can also draw from these statements the following contrapositive chain:
  ATAE   -->  PG  -->  RA  -->  AS

The theorist concludes that, with respect to the European Union,  not all members  of the will be strong in foreign policy (this is the condition ‘ AS ’ diagrammed above). We are then asked to justify this conclusion. This means that from the answer choices we should select the one which, when added to the premises in the stimulus, allows for this conclusion ( AS ) to be properly drawn.

Answer choice (A): This answer choice concerns an irrelevant group—those countries which refuse to join an alliance. Since this information does not affect the conditional reasoning in the stimulus, this answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (B): This choice supplies another condition, and relates to the aggression level of individual countries rather than the responses of alliances.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. If problems that appear economically threatening to some countries do not appear so to others, then at least some countries do not perceive the gravity of the threat, meaning  PG  (that is, not all countries in the alliance perceive the threat), and if we know this then we know  PG  -->  RA  -->  AS . In other words, from this information we can logically conclude  AS .

Answer choice (D): It does not matter which countries are weak, and this choice does not prove that any countries do fail to perceive economic relevance, so this choice does not trigger any of the conditions in the stimulus needed to justify the conclusion.

Answer choice (E): The benefits derived by individual countries from alliance membership are irrelevant to the conclusion we seek to justify.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Political theorist: For all of its members to be strong in foreign pol

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