#20 - Global Reference, Strengthen

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[mcoker]

Hi! Can you please confirm if I am approaching how to solve this correctly?

Struggled with this one. I believe this is a Strengthen question, but originally read it as an Inference.

Below would be my assessment as an inference q, but upon approaching this as a strengthen, it is only B that strengthen's the author's argument - correct?

A) Appears to align with first norm - if recipe is not copied exactly, no social norm broken

B) Predicting the actions of a Chef after an initial social norm betrayal seems extreme

C) Not how copyright works - can be eliminated easily

D) Contradicts conclusion that chef community allows for social norms to govern conduct - can be eliminated

E) No reference in passage that gives this practical thought any support

[James Finch]

Hi M Coker,

Good job reviewing this question! It is indeed a Strengthen type, meaning that we're looking for another premise to support Passage B's conclusion that chefs' social norms regarding recipes function in an analogous manner to copyright law. And as you note, only answer choice (B) does this, by adding another premise describing a sanction that breakers of the norms would be punished by, similar to potential liability that violators of copyright laws could subject themselves to.

Good job!

[harvoolio]

James. I think the original poster is asking why (B) over (A) which is my question too.

(B) is not explicitly stated which is not necessary for an MSS. But can you connect-the-dots how "by adding another premise describing a sanction that breakers of the norms would be punished by, similar to potential liability that violators of copyright laws could subject themselves to." means that it is significantly more likely to deny requested information to colleagues whom they believe have violated the operative social norms?

I chose the most popular wrong answer (A) which I did not like when I chose it. If the word "unattributed" was added before "recipe" I would have liked it better, but potentially this violates the third social norm of "credit".

Thanks.

[Adam Tyson]

This question is a Strengthen question, harvoolio, and not a Most Strongly Supported or Must Be True question. That means we want new information in the answer choice (rather than something that was already stated in the argument) that will make the author's conclusion more likely to be valid.

In order to strengthen the argument, we have to first focus on the conclusion of that argument, since that is what we want to help improve. Author B's argument is that the three implicit social norms among chefs provide protection that is analogous to the protections provided by intellectual property laws. What we need to see in our answer choice, then, is some additional evidence that those norms provide a similar level of protection.

Answer A tells us nothing more about the protection that the norms provide, and in fact it tells us about the sort of protection that is does NOT provide. That's no help at all to our conclusion!

Answer B adds evidence to support the author's claim by showing us that violation of the norms carries with it certain penalties, or at least that the norms are accompanied by some incentives for the chefs to comply with them. Those incentive and penalties make the norms operate to give further protection, like enforcement of IP laws does in areas where they apply. If a chef could violate the norms and suffer no adverse consequences (because other chefs would still share their recipes with them) then the norms would not provide much, if any, protection.