#24 - Anthropologists assert that cultures advance only when

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True-SN. The correct answer choice is (A)

According to the anthropologists, to advance cultures need independence. The conditional relationship between cultural advance and independence can thus be summarized as follows:

• Cultural advance → Independence

Most of the stimulus reiterates this principle in different ways. Since individuals schools are considered separate cultures, the above-mentioned principle must hold true for them as well: their educational progress must depend on their independence. Therefore, Answer choice (A) is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (B): Since schools are separate cultures and each culture requires independence in order to advance, all schools require independence. Whether some require more independence than others is beyond the scope of this argument. This answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (C): The information in the stimulus gives no support to the idea of tailoring school-specific initiatives for change. If anything, because schools require independence from outside influence, school system officials should probably stay out of trying to initiate change. This answer choice runs contrary to the principle advanced in the stimulus and is therefore incorrect.

Answer choice (D): This is an exaggerated answer. Since non-natives may provide valuable advice, we can expect that some outside influence is helpful. Progress depends on independence, not complete isolation. This answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (E): This answer choice is a Mistaken Reversal of the principle — independence does not necessarily lead to progress. There is no reason to believe that the two are positively correlated. This answer choice is incorrect.

[destaat]

Hi,
I'm working in the training book and I came across this Main Point FIB question from the dec 91 test (LR 1 #24). Can someone help me distinguish answer choice A from Answer choice E. I need help understanding why A is the better answer.

Thank you.

[Nikki Siclunov]

The reasoning proceeds by analogy. Just like cultural advances depend on independence, so does educational progress. Answer choice (A) fits our prephrase perfectly: educational progress depends on individual schools being independent of outside imposition. There is an inherent conditionality between progress and independence, which can be diagrammed as follows:

Progress Independence

The issue with (E) is that it implies a correlation between the two. We do not have sufficient evidence to infer that the more independent a school is, the more educational progress it will make. Independence does not necessarily cause progress, nor is it necessarily correlated with progress. It is merely a necessary condition for progress ("cultures advance only when independence replaces dependence"). The author never discussed how different degrees of independence might correlate with the progress made by nations (or schools).

[destaat]

Ok. I think I would have understood quicker if I had realized it was a conditional question. I didn't catch the "only when" indicator. Thank you.

[sfabian]

As a side note, I just wanted to ask how exactly to diagram the premise:
"The natives of a culture are the only ones who can move that culture forward"

"The only" is a little tricky for me but would the diagram look like:

MCF N

Where MCF is "People who can move culture forward" and N is "the natives of that culture"

Thanks for the help!

[David Boyle]

As a side note, I just wanted to ask how exactly to diagram the premise:
"The natives of a culture are the only ones who can move that culture forward"

"The only" is a little tricky for me but would the diagram look like:

MCF N

Where MCF is "People who can move culture forward" and N is "the natives of that culture"

Thanks for the help!

Hello sfabian,

That's about right! "The only" is a sufficient indicator, because it has a "the" before "only", which sort of reverses the polarity of the "only", and gives us not a necessary, but a sufficient indicator. So, "The natives of a culture are the only ones who can move that culture forward" can be rephrased as, "If someone moves the culture forward, it must be the natives", which is what your diagram above essentially says.

Hope this helps,
David

[martinbeslu]

This one isn’t making any sense to me.

Answer choice A says that individual schools MUST be independent of outside imposition. This answer looks too strong. It looks like an absolute statement. It sounds like they are saying that if there is any outside imposition it will prevent educational progress. The word MUST doesn't leave room for any imposition to occur whatsoever.

If we were to write this sentence as a conditional statement it would be:
educational progress —> individual schools ARE independent of outside imposition

However, this isn’t necessarily the case. The contrapositive of that statement would be:
Individual schools are not independent of outside imposition —> NO education progress

However, the stimulus tells us that it isn't all or nothing. You don't have to be one or the other ("dependent" or "independent"), you are more likely to be some varying degree of independent. This is how the real world works too. No school (or culture) is completely independent of any outside imposition. There will always be outside forces but some cultures (or schools) have more independence than others. The first sentence of the stimulus says "cultures advance only when independence replaces dependence." Surely they don't mean that a culture has to be 100% independent of any other culture to advance. Rather, the more independent a culture is the more they will advance.

The stimulus also tells us: “only when imposition by outsiders is replaced by initiative from within.” Clearly this is not all or nothing. If some small country relies on another country for it’s military, banking system, and legal system and then one day starts it’s own independent banking system then according to the stimulus this small country would be more independent and therefore they have moved their culture forward even though they are still very dependent on another country in many other ways. Even the USA is dependent on other countries in many ways but anthropologists would not assert that our country can’t advance until this dependence is completely removed. Rather, the more independent a culture becomes, the more it can advance.

Answer choice E reflects this middle ground between 100% dependent and 100% independent. The stimulus says “any imposition of their views THREATENS independence and thus progress.” Imposition threatens independence, it doesn’t rule it out. Clearly, the more imposition of views, the less independent a culture is, and the less it advances.

[martinbeslu]

In the question that starts with, "The United States ranks far behind...", the explanation for why answer choice A is correct says:

"Given that joint safety committees have a proven record of reducing occupational injuries in all three countries, it is reasonable to infer that increasing their number in medium-sized and large workplaces in the U.S. would further benefit workplace safety in that country. Answer choice (A) is therefore correct."

Why can that inference not be made here in answer choice E?

[Jennifer Janowsky]

Martinbeslu,

It is true that larger inferences could be made in this case. However, the question only asks for the most logical fill for the blank. In this question, the author is attempting to apply a view about culture to an analogous situation about education.

You can summarize the culture analogy as this: Outsiders may provide advice but imposition of their views threatens independence/progress. Therefore, insiders are the only ones who can move culture forward.

In this case, all of the answer choices may be true and sound good, but only one accurately applies the analogy to schools. If we apply the same thinking to schools as was used by anthropologists about culture, then the natural choice to fill in the blank is "individual schools must be independent of outside imposition."

[S2KMo]

Hello,

I don't seem to understand the conditional relationship: Cultural advance Independence

The way I interpret it is, if independence replaces dependance, then cultures advance. But this is the other way around from your statement. Could you help me understand how you came to that conditional relationship? It doesn't help that the sentences uses both sufficient and necessary condition indicators back to back

Thanks in advance!