Q14 - Economist: A country's trade deficit

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Analyze Argument Structure (Describe Technique)

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Trying to reduce a trade deficit by restricting imports would be like trying to bring down someone's fever by putting a thermometer in a glass of cold water.
Evidence: A trade deficit can indicate a weak economy, but it doesn't itself weaken the economy.

Answer Anticipation:
When questions ask us to describe how the author proceeded or what technique she used, they generally pull from this short list: analogy, counterexample, implications of someone's logic, rules out alternatives, defines/clarifies a term, alternative interpretation. In this case, the author clearly makes an analogy from talking about a nation's trade deficit to talking about some hypothetical patient's fever.

Correct Answer:
C

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) There's certainly no CLAIM that an assumption entails a falsehood. We could say the author assumes that sticking a thermometer in a glass wouldn't lower someone's temp, just as restricting imports wouldn't reduce a trade deficit.

(B) This is attractive since it says 'analogy', but the author isn't fighting someone else's analogy as this answer choice implies. The author is providing her own supporting analogy.

(C) YES. The author is saying "just as sticking the thermometer in cold water doesn't actually solve the problem of the patient's fever, so too does restricting imports not solve the problem of the weak economy that created the trade deficit".

(D) It's hard to match this up with anything. Calling into question the authority is like attacking the expert/data someone used to make his argument.

(E) "Disastrous" is way too extreme. The author saying something is a dumb idea, not a disastrous one.

Takeaway/Pattern: Ultimately, Describe questions are just "if it matches the argument, it's right". By spotting the clear analogy, we could funnel ourselves to B vs. C very quickly.

#officialexplanation

[rdeuts75]

Can someone please explain why the correct answer is C instead of B?


Thanks.

[dtangie23]

Trade deficit does not weaken economy.

So, there's no need to try to restrict imports to reduce trade deficit because, again, the trade deficit does not weaken the economy.

We'd be doing something, restricting import, which will not weaken the economy.

That's like putting a thermometer in cold water to bring down a person's fever. It will have no effect on the ultimate goal.

[aileenann]

Yes, I agree. The point here is that the economist says the action would be wrong, or silly, because it would be completely ineffectual. The author uses the thermometer analogy because to show why it would be useless. The author likes the analogy and thinks it's dead on, not faulty.

Thus (B) is wrong because it implies that there is something wrong with the analogy, but this is decidedly not the case. (C) is dead on in showing that the author simply uses the analogy to make his previous point even clearer, using that more concrete example that we all can understand even if we're not theoretical economists.

[AnnaC659]

Question Type:
Analyze Argument Structure (Describe Technique)

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Trying to reduce a trade deficit by restricting imports would be like trying to bring down someone's fever by putting a thermometer in a glass of cold water.
Evidence: A trade deficit can indicate a weak economy, but it doesn't itself weaken the economy.

Answer Anticipation:
When questions ask us to describe how the author proceeded or what technique she used, they generally pull from this short list: analogy, counterexample, implications of someone's logic, rules out alternatives, defines/clarifies a term, alternative interpretation. In this case, the author clearly makes an analogy from talking about a nation's trade deficit to talking about some hypothetical patient's fever.

Correct Answer:
C

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) There's certainly no CLAIM that an assumption entails a falsehood. We could say the author assumes that sticking a thermometer in a glass wouldn't lower someone's temp, just as restricting imports wouldn't reduce a trade deficit.

(B) This is attractive since it says 'analogy', but the author isn't fighting someone else's analogy as this answer choice implies. The author is providing her own supporting analogy.

(C) YES. The author is saying "just as sticking the thermometer in cold water doesn't actually solve the problem of the patient's fever, so too does restricting imports not solve the problem of the weak economy that created the trade deficit".

(D) It's hard to match this up with anything. Calling into question the authority is like attacking the expert/data someone used to make his argument.

(E) "Disastrous" is way too extreme. The author saying something is a dumb idea, not a disastrous one.

Takeaway/Pattern: Ultimately, Describe questions are just "if it matches the argument, it's right". By spotting the clear analogy, we could funnel ourselves to B vs. C very quickly.

#officialexplanation

Hi I got this one right but just want to make sure I understand why the wrong answers are wrong.

With (A) "claiming that a crucial assumption entails a falsehood", can't we see it as the economist is claiming that an assumption (inferred from stimulus) that 'restricting imports to reduce a trade deficit would better the economy' is wrong?

[ohthatpatrick]

I think you're just saying that (A) is appealing because we can imagine the invisible enemy against whom the economist might be arguing.

ENEMY: We have a big trade deficit in this country and thus we have a weakened economy. Hence, we should restrict imports in order to lower our trade deficit.

The economist could say, "Your argument hinges on the notion that trade deficits have an impact on weakening in the economy. That's false. A trade deficit may indicate weakness, but it doesn't cause weakness."

What I just showed is our author claiming that a crucial assumption is false.

First and foremost, I'd want you to think that (A) is wrong because there is no visible claim the author made that seems directed at a specific opponent or argument. No language clearly indicates that she is responding to anyone else, and if there's not a someone-else making an argument then there's no assumption for our author to be arguing against.

We're not allowed to suspect that someone-else made an argument just because we hear this person and it sounds like she might be responding to someone else's idea.

I could spontaneously marshal an argument that says, "Falling from a height of four stories or higher is usually fatal. So, no, I will NOT be jumping off the Empire State Building any time soon."

Kinda sounds like someone suggested I should jump, but I can just be speaking this argument in a vacuum.

We'd be working way too hard on imagining things OFF the page to make (A) work. There is so visible claim made by the economist that sounds directed at any specific argument or entity.

But ... the second problem with (A) is that in my example our author "claimed that a crucial assumption was false".

That's different from claiming that an assumption ENTAILS a falsehood. "To entail" something is to logically imply a second idea.

For that to work, you'd need:
- an actual opponent with an argument
- an assumption being made
- the author saying, "If that assumption were true, then X would also be true"
- and, "but we know that X is not true"

Hope this helps.