#13 - Pedigreed dogs, including those officially classified

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Justify the Conclusion—PR. The correct answer choice is (E)

This stimulus is horribly long, and you need to have a good approach to this type of question on test day. My approach to such a long stimulus is initially to focus on the argumentative portion rather than the informative portion, which in this case means the second half of the stimulus.

The second half argues that since dog breeders only seek to preserve traits specified by pedigree associations, other traits risk being lost. It concludes that pedigree organizations should set standards to preserve working ability in the working dog classification.

The question asks you to justify the conclusion with a principle, so you should look for support for the argumentative portion of the stimulus.

Answer choice (A): You can easily discard this choice, because the argument in the stimulus seemed to concern adding requirements, not replacing one requirement with another. This choice, however, is written as if the stimulus concerned a trade-off between characteristics. You could also eliminate this choice because it offers reason to not set a standard rather than support for a standard.

Answer choice (B): Since the argument in the stimulus concerned adding standards, not being certain to enforce existing standards, a principle requiring equal enforcement of a new standard does not prove that a new standard should be set. This response is incorrect.

Answer choice (C): Once again, this response concerns a responsibility to enforce a standard, but the argument in the stimulus concerned a responsibility to set a standard. This principle does not help, so this choice is wrong.

Answer choice (D): This choice is very attractive, but is incorrect. Since you cannot be sure that those dogs classified as working dogs will actually be put to such use, you cannot be sure that a principle demanding standards based on eventual use would prove that new standards should be set.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice. The principle that standards should reflect the original purpose of products or activities would demand new standards reflecting working ability for dogs classified as working dogs. To 100% confirm this choice, review the rest of the stimulus. You will find that pedigree associations do not currently require that breeders preserve the work abilities of working dogs, which means that what you would presume is likely given the argumentative part of the stimulus is actually stated.

[tug59567]

Hi Powerscore Administrator,

I am stumped by this question. I narrowed my options down to A and E, but incorrectly eliminated E since the stimulus never mentions what the Pedigree's "purposes for which they were originally developed". Nothing in the stimulus mentions that Pedigree organizations want to, or have a goal of preserving "working ability" in dogs, which is an assumption necessary for answer choice E.

I am also confused on how you easily eliminated answer choice A. I don't see how answer choice A is considered a "trade-off", as mentioned above. It seems to allow for new rules to be written that more adequately encompass the aesthetic and "working ability" needs that the stimulus argues for.

Does that make sense? What am I missing?

Thank you very much,
Jason

[Adam Tyson]

In referring to working dogs, Jason, the stimulus mentions working dogs being able to do "the work for which they were developed." That means that working dogs were originally intended to do certain work, like herding. Answer E is about setting standards that will ensure that "products or activities" (which presumably would include dogs and the things dogs do) can keep doing what they were originally supposed to do. If that is a valid principle, then these pedigree organizations should be setting standards that preserve those working traits rather than encouraging those traits to be lost.

The problem with answer A is that it is about the kinds of standards those organizations should NOT set, but does nothing to prove the claim about what sort of standards they SHOULD set. We need a principle that actively encourages a positive action, rather than one that merely discourages a negative one, in order to prove that the pedigree organizations should set these new types of standards.

[Newbie]

I am confused between D and E. I selected D

The conclusion states that the Org should set standards which ensure that working ability of dogs is also reflected (my words). D talks about Setting standard so to reflect the use.

E goes to the extreme - requires that Orgs should attempt to ensure that those dogs serve the purpose which is not the original intent.

I guess i a missing to understand some tiny difference - sorry about that

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Newbie,

The problem with answer choice D is a subtle one. The argument doesn't commit to any particular use to which pedigreed dogs will be put by people who purchase or acquire them. So the principle in answer choice D could apply to justify the conclusion if we knew that the working dogs would be used in the future as working dogs. But we don't know that they will. Thus answer choice D cannot fully justify this conclusion.

Answer choice E justifies the conclusion, because we do know the purpose for which working dogs were originally developed. Working ability is a trait that, according to the second sentence, would "enable breeds originally developed as working dogs to perform the work for which they were developed." The principle in answer choice E would validate a standard requiring working ability for pedigreed dogs classified as working dogs, because those dogs were originally developed to perform work.

I hope this helps!