PrepTest 143

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Must Be True

Stimulus Summary:
Correct belief that getting fired is the result of impersonal forces → Demand for more government control of economy
More government control of economy → Economical disaster

Answer Anticipation:
Must Be True questions frequently rely on conditional logic, so as soon as we saw that "If" at the beginning of this stimulus, we prepared to start diagramming. However, there are some subtleties to this diagram that we should dig into.

First, these are really long premises, so we want to summarize without losing too much information. The more you summarize, however, the more you should check back with the stimulus before bubbling in your answer to make sure all the details line up.

Second, that parenthetical—a certain belief is correct—is important to note. Beliefs on the LSAT are relevant because they don't need to be true, but the Economist goes out of her way to note that this one is, so we should pay attention.

Third, we dropped the analogy. There's unlikely to be an inference made from an analogy that's thrown in quickly but doesn't continue into later premises.

Fourth, that second "conditional" is really a causal statement—"would lead to." However, in stating it with certainty ("would"), we can treat it as a conditional in order to work with it more easily.

Finally, there's a gap between that first conditional and the second which means we can't simply chain them together. The necessary condition of the first statement is about demand for more government control, and the sufficient condition of the second is that that control exists.

Since there's a gap between the two conditionals, we can't just straightforwardly chain them together. However, there is a strong connection between them, so we should expect an answer to have something to do with this belief spreading resulting in economic disaster—we just need to make sure the answer doesn't state that it will lead to it, since there's a chance the demand for more government control won't lead to more government control.

Answer Explanation:
The belief about job loss being the "effect" of impersonal forces is correct, according to the Economist, so that belief becoming widespread would count as increased knowledge of the causes of job loss. With the notes from our anticipation, we said that there was a connection between that and economic disaster, as this answer choice states. And the jump between the premises (demand for control to actual control) is reflected in this answer when it says that this increased knowledge "could" result in economic disaster, so this answer is supported.

Key Takeaway:
Weaker answer choices are easier to establish than stronger answer choices, so when you have a stimulus where the connections aren't air-tight but the terms between statements are still related, the correct answer might rely on weak language about potential connections ("could lead to") rather than certain ones.

Incorrect. The stimulus notes that government control of the economy can protect people from these impersonal social forces, so this answer is contradicted in the stimulus.

Incorrect. The Economist states only that "such extensive" government control can lead to economic disaster, so this answer is too broad and strong in stating that governments "should never" exert control over the economy.

Incorrect. This demand will grow if the correct belief about the cause of joblessness becomes widespread, but there's no indication that it has.

Incorrect. The stimulus relates the economy to the military as far as a potential role for the government to protect people, not for people feeling responsible for what they're being protected from, so this answer mischaracterizes the comparison.