Logical reasoning PrepTest 126 · Section 4 · Question 6

Incorrect. A new national identity being formed suggests that the old one was threatened (and lost the battle), so this answer aligns with the argument.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Weaken

Stimulus Summary:
Modern culture is churning out new ideas/groups/movements with increasing speed, so modern culture is threatening national identities.

Answer Anticipation:
One way to analyze arguments and find assumptions is to note terms that are shared between the premises and conclusion, and terms that aren't. When a conclusion includes a new concept and a concept shared with the premises, that new concept is likely related to the gap in the reasoning.

Here, the glue holding the premise and conclusion together is modern culture"—it's mentioned in both places. However, it's related to different concepts, and so the gap is between those concepts.

The conclusion states that modern culture is threatening national identities. The premise states that modern culture is churning out new ideas/groups/movements. The assumption in the argument, therefore, is that something that churns out new ideas/groups/movements threatens national identity.

As such, any answer that suggests these things don't threaten national identity will weaken this argument.

Answer Explanation:
This answer suggests that rather than threatening national identity, having so many subcultures (ideas/groups/movements all counting as potential subcultures) actually stabilizes national identity. That weakens the argument by suggesting the speed with which modern society is churning these things out is actually a benefit to national identities, not a threat.

Key Takeaway:
Conclusions that share terms with premises but also introduce new concepts can be analyzed through a specific lens. Identify the "glue" that holds the two pieces of the argument together—the shared concept. Then, find the assumption linking the two terms that the shared term is related to together.

Incorrect. First, this answer has a common tell" for a wrong answer in Weaken (and Strengthen) questions—it uses a neutral word. What we mean by that is that "change" doesn't tell us whether the rate will go up or down, which is pretty important to analyzing the impact of such a change on the argument. This type of "neutral" language frequently shows up in wrong answers in this question type. Second, this answer doesn't connect even an increase in that rate to destabilization of national identity—so it doesn't address the gap in the argument and thus doesn't affect it.

Incorrect. This answer conflates two terms—modern culture and national identity. Ignoring that, this answer talks about whether it's good that a certain type of national identity is threatened, not whether it's actually threatened by a certain phenomenon, so it doesn't affect the argument.

Incorrect. Similar to (D), this answer speaks to the benefits of having a stable national identity, not whether a certain phenomenon is threatening that identity, so it's out of scope.