#11 - Concept Reference, Must Be True, Author's Perspective

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

(See the complete passage discussion here: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=7427)

CR, Must—AP. The correct answer choice is (C)

This question requires a solid grasp of the author’s perspective on trade regulations in countries like
Mali. In the last paragraph, the author suggests that if UNESCO had helped Mali, some regulations
could have been enforced, and the country probably would have achieved a better outcome than it
did.

Answer choice (A): The author does not mention any such requirement, so this choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (B): The author does not make any such demands of such regulations, but simply
asserts that they can be helpful.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. As discussed above, the author believes that
cultural activities trade regulations could be helpful even if they were not followed in every instance.

Answer choice (D): The passage doesn’t deal with the issue of how strictly violators should be
punished, so there is no way to determine the author’s perspective on this issue.

Answer choice (E): Although this choice is a “could be true,” and seems like a reasonable assertion,
the author makes no such claim in the passage, so this choice fails the Fact Test and should be ruled
out of contention.

[nihals23]

Could you please tell me why B isnt the right option? The passage throws light upon the fact that cultural antiquities must remain in the country they originate from. Also,in C, how can one deduce the fact that 'even if not all people strictly comply with them these regulations will be beneficial' ?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Nihals,

Let's start with answer choice (B). We don't know what the author would say the goal of the regulations should be. Is it maximizing the number of antiquities in a country? Is it focused on the centrality of the item to the cultural heritage? What about situations like the Kurds where the culture is spread out over many countries? The UNESCO regulations seem to favor cultures keeping their cultural artifacts, but do not specify that the cultural artifacts can't spread across' borders if they remain in the same culture. The discussion of countries requiring that such artifacts remain within their borders is discussed, but it is not clear that the regulations have to have the goal of maximizing the number of artifacts in the country.

For answer choice (C), we can look to the final paragraph. The author discusses how possible regulations could have been implemented, but states "some people would still have avoided the rules." But, they draw the conclusion that it still would have been a better situation (ie, beneficial) to have had the rules. From this, we can draw out answer choice (C)---there would be some benefit to the regulations, even if they weren't fully followed.

Hope that helps!
Rachael

[skimmmm]

I have a question on why C is a better answer than D. Is it because "regulations governing the trade in cultural antiquities" can only be interpreted to refer to the regulation that the author proposes in the final paragraph, as opposed to the law against exporting that the Mali government had in place?

I initially chose D because in the first paragraph, the author mentioned that one of the issues with the Mali law against excavations and exporting was that they could not enforce it. So I figured that since D mentions a method of enforcing that law, it was the correct option.

Thank you!

[Luke Haqq]

Hi skimmmm!

One could glean from this passage that the author sees that rules and regulations could serve a beneficial purpose with respect to the issues that the author discusses. This seems to come across the most in the final paragraph. However, I didn't see anywhere in the passage where the author discusses punishment. Something like that would need to be much more explicit in the passage for (D) to be a contender. This is a must be true question, so we're asked for what we know the author would believe. It's possible that the author might believe (D), but we just don't know one way or another based on the passage alone.