#10 - Naturalist: To be dependable, the accounting framework

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True—SN. The correct answer choice is (C)

The naturalist argues that the Dependability of the accounting framework relies on All Assets being accounted for (D All A). He/she then states that Not All Assets are being accounted for (Not All A). The proper conclusion comes from the completion of this contrapositive: the accounting framework is Not Dependable.

Answer choice (A): Poor decisions are never discussed by the naturalist.

Answer choice (B): We cannot know economists’s views from this stimulus.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. As prephrased, this answer states that the framework is not dependable/reliable.

Answer choice (D): This answer choice is too strong and cannot be known from the stimulus.

Answer choice (E): This idea is also never discussed in the stimulus and therefore cannot be known.

[Kennedv_]

Hi,

I understand how C is correct but I picked B and am having a hard time understanding why it is incorrect. Can you please clarify?

The stimulus states that the economists assigned the natural resources with no value so doesn't that tell us their view is that it has no value. Then, at the end of the naturalist's argument it says "which are 'clearly' assets. Does that not mean that the naturalists believe that there is some sort of value to the natural resources if they think they are "clearly" assets?

Thanks for the help in advance!

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Kennedv_,

While I generally agree with your reading of the stimulus, notice that answer choice B refers to "naturalists" in the plural, treating their attitudes about natural resources as identical as a group. The stimulus only gives us the basis for inferring the viewpoint of one single naturalist, the speaker of the stimulus. We cannot infer (without more) that the speaker's viewpoint is representative of naturalists more broadly.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy

[jdavidwik]

A point that affected my answer was the lack of the "our" before "national economists" in choice C. It could be that we are talking about national economists in general. Nothing is established.
Lacking that modifier, it looks as broad as answer choice B to me, which extends the Naturalist's statements to Naturalists.

I want to apply the lesson learned here to future LR questions. My instinct was to view C as the trap answer given the omission of "our", but that is not the case here, whereas it seems that elsewhere in LR it would be.

[atierney]

This question is a Must-be-true. Basically, this means it is a question of pure deduction. Everything the stimulus says is taken as true, i.e. the stimulus statements are not to be construed as opinions. Now, if you look at this particular stimulus in this manner, answer choice B can be ruled out, because there, there's a meta-analysis going on that appears to treat the entire stimulus an argument of persuasion rather than as a collection of facts, as they are intended to be construed, given the question type.

In terms of C, I didn't catch, on initial review, the omission of "our," and so it didn't affect my reading of the answer choice in any way. One of the lessons of Must-be-true, aside their deductive nature, is that sometimes you can prephrase what the argument is driving at. Indeed, one way to view these types of questions, is that they are really looking for you to supply a conclusion that ties together the statements of the stimulus. Given everything stated, what would logically follow. If you apply this strategy to this particular, the prephrase should sound very similar to what is found in answer choice C. And so, the omission of our is negligible given how neatly it matches the natural conclusion of the stimulus's statements.

Let me know if you have any questions on this.