#21 - Claim: Country X's government lowered tariff barriers

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Weaken—PR. The correct answer choice is (E)

The "principle" says that we can explain policy changes by looking at the economic winners only if we also show the motivation and mechanism by which the winners influenced the change.

If we couple this with a premise which shows that the "powerful foreign companies" did not have a motivation and mechanism for influencing the policy change, or perhaps that some other causal force influenced the policy change, then we can successfully defeat the "claim."

Answer choice (A): This answer choice does not undermine the idea that "foreign companies" were economic winners from the policy change. It also does not really deal with the mechanism of influence. This is not the best answer choice.

Answer choice (B): That importers have suffered is completely consistent with foreign companies benefiting. This answer choice does not defeat the claim.

Answer choice (C): The economic effects may have been impossible to predict in the short term, but perhaps the economic effects (including benefit to foreign companies) were predictable in the long term. This does not eliminate the possibility that the foreign companies had motivation to seek the policy change. This is not a good answer choice.

Answer choice (D): That the "foreign companies" compete fiercely with each other in the marketplace does not eliminate the possibility that they could band together in the political arena to lobby for tariff reductions.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice. If we have no evidence of the mechanism by which the foreign companies induced the change, then according to the "principle", we cannot prove the claim.

[reop6780]

I did not have much problem finding the right answer, but cannot tell what kind of question this is.

[Lucas Moreau]

Hi, Reop,

This is a Weaken question, of the Principle subtype. This is an unusual question construction, I agree with you there! What it's really asking can be summed up as:

Principle + Answer Choice = Argument that counters (weakens) Claim

Hope that helps,
Lucas Moreau
PowerScore

[alex.r.berson@gmail.com]

Hi there,

I answered (B) to this because, and please tell me if this is not how I should think of this, I interpreted the "foreign companies" in the answer choice to mean the same foreign companies in the claim.

If importers of those same foreign companies' products had their profits reduced wouldn't that be contrary to the interests of the same foreign companies who got the tarriffs lowered? Meaning, wouldn't the foreign companies not be seeing the same money and wouldn't that have been contrary to their interests. I see how it could be interpreted as just the importers are hurt but am I wrong to assume that the foreign companies in the answer choice are the same as those in the claim?

I see why (E) is correct - it was my second choice.

[Dana D]

Hey Alex,

Focus here on what the question is asking - we're supposed to use the principle to counter the claim, meaning we need an answer choice which ties to the principle. Answer choice (B) certainly shows that maybe Country X's decision to lower the tariff barriers doesn't serve the interests of foreign countries, but the principle states that in order to make a claim like the one in this question, you must show how the interest of the group played a role in causing the change. Answer choice (B) still leaves the possibility that the foreign companies could have brought about the lowered tariffs. Maybe the foreign countries wanted the change but this was an unintended negative consequence of the change, we just don't know.