#24 - Trade official: Country X deserves economic

[timmydoeslsat]

I am a bit bothered by the following:

Take the statement, "I should do X."

This is the equivalent of telling me that... "I should always do X"...correct?

If so, which I believe it is, then to correctly negate this statement is the following:

I should not always do X.

It seems that a straight negation of going from "should" to "~should"...is the equivalent of going from always to never. It does not account for the middle ground of sometimes. It seems that "should" would be included in this idea. To go from saying "should do X" to saying "~should do X" would not seem to be the true negation.

I would like some clarification on this because in 25-2-24, this would make answer choice E, the correct answer, not actually necessary. What would be necessary is that "Should sometimes balance." This answer choice right now states should always if my understanding of a should statement is correct. And in that context, we do not have to have that always be true.

[timmydoeslsat]

Preptest 25 Section 2 #24 to be more precise.

[timmydoeslsat]

Also, answer choice C is strong in its use of never.

Couldn't answer choice C fit this bill?

[Adam Tyson]

Okay, you really got me thinking on this one, and I think you and I are both making this more complicated than it needs to be. Let's go with the simplest approach. We can negate answer choice E by just adding a "not" - "we should not balance the justice of an action... ." That destroys the conclusion pretty nicely, and so must be an assumption of the argument. If we do a simple negation of choice C we get "We should sometimes jeopardize the interests... ." (logical opposition rather than polar works better here). What does that statement do to our conclusion? Nothing, because the author argued only about "in this case". So maybe sometimes we should jeopardize are interests, but what about in this case?

Sorry if I led you down a long and winding path on this one. Sometimes it helps to step back and start over with the simplest approach. I'm glad you kept pushing me on it - I wasn't all that happy with my first answer, and it took a while for me to figure out why.

Thanks, and good luck!

Adam

[Abigailing]

if you had multiple answer choices using the same language with the only difference being that of quantifiers, then using the polar is not effective.

[Steve Stein]

That's a good point; logical opposition would be the way to go.

Thanks!

[LSAT2018]

Comparing answers (A) and (E), would (A) be eliminated because it is too specific to be the principle? I chose answer (A) because of the sentence 'However, it is crucial that we recognize that there are overriding considerations in this case.' From 'overriding considerations,' I thought this was well reflected in the 'more important' part stated in the answer.

Can I ask for an explanation for (E)?


Also I found that answers (B), (C) and (D) weaken the argument. Can I ask for confirmation on this?

[deck1134]

I had a hard time negating (C), as it does seem to hurt the argument.

"We should sometimes jeopardize the interests of our people to punish a protectionist country." --Doesn't that hurt? Or is the problem that the author does sometimes view retribution as necessary?

The explanations given above are confusing as it looks like some responses have been removed. Can someone help? Thanks.

[Adam Tyson]

LSAT2018 - the main problem with A is not its specificity, but rather its broadness. By bringing in non-agricultural commodities, it goes beyond the scope of what we were given in the stimulus, which only spoke of agricultural issues. While there is an element of "more important" in the stimulus, this comparison is not the same as the comparison in the stimulus.

Answer E is the assumption because the author did exactly what it says, balanced the justice of an action (Country X deserves retribution) with our interests (we need their agricultural products). Negated, answer E gives us "We should NOT balance the justice of an action with the consequences for our interests of undertaking that action." That would mean we leave our interests out of the equation and just do whatever is just - in this case, give retribution to Country X (presumably in the form of refusing to send them our agricultural equipment). Forget out interests, just give them what they deserve.

Answer B has no impact, because we know nothing about what is popular or whether we are entering an international market or just staying engaged in one we are already in.

Answer C justifies the conclusion, but is not a necessary assumption. If we should NEVER jeopardize our interests in order to punish another country, then we should not do it in this case. To answer Deck's question now, if we negate answer C (which you did correctly - good work) we get something that weakens the argument, but that is not the test for the Assumption Negation Technique. The test is that the negated answer should WRECK the argument, completely undermining the evidence for the conclusion. Saying that we should sometimes behave in a certain way doesn't mean that we should do so in this case. It still could be that our interests in Country X's agricultural products is important enough that, in this case, we should do as our author says. Since C's negation doesn't wreck the argument, it is not a necessary assumption of the argument.

Answer D does indeed weaken the argument, although it doesn't wreck it for the same reason the negation of C did not. Since it weakens, it is definitely not an assumption.

[na02]

Hi,

How should answer C have been written to be correct?
"We should sometimes jeopardize..."? Would that negate to "We should never"?
I'm still trying to grasp the Negation technique