Q23

[Katie B. P972]

Please explain how B is the correct choice. Thanks

[RebeccaT809]

Not an instructor but let me give it a try.

This stimulus is written in such a confusing way (at least I felt that way) that I'd like to first break it down sentence by sentence and try to clear up what info we're given in each of them.

1st sentence: political constitutions must be interpreted.

2nd sentence: these interpretations are portrayed as embodying the intentions of the original authors of the constitutions (portrayed, meaning, they're usually not the actual intentions of the original authors, hence why it's called 'fiction' in the following sentence).

3rd sentence (most crucial):
1. If this 'fiction' doesn't exist, meaning, if people don't think that the interpretations are the actual intentions of the original authors, the 'illusion' would vanish. The 'illusion' here refers to the belief that laws are not just a compilation of some arbitrary and subjective preferences of politicians, but a firm, objective set of rules that are handed down in its long tradition. Saying that this 'illusion would vanish' would mean that people will no longer believe that the laws come from a long tradition.
To summarize, if people don't think that the interpretations are the actual intentions of the original authors, then people will no longer believe that the laws come from a long tradition
(~fiction -> ~illusion)

2. This 'illusion' is necessary for political stability. The contrapositive of this would be that if a nation doesn't believe that laws come from a long tradition, it would be politically unstable.
(~illusion -> ~stable)


Now, if we combine 1 and 2 of the 3rd sentence, then,
~fiction -> ~illusion -> ~stable
(if people don't think that the interpretations are the actual intentions of the original authors, then a nation doesn't believe that laws come from a long tradition, and if so, it would be politically unstable.)


Now let's look at the answer choices. Because this is an MBT question, I would assume that the correct answer choice would be consistent with the combined logic above.

(A) Was very tempting for me. I actually picked this one in my first try because I thought the first half of the AC stood for '~fiction'. But (A) is incorrect because it is NOT the laws itself but the interpretations of the laws through which politicians express their intentions. This distinction is made in the 1st and the 2nd sentence of the stimulus.
(B) Is correct. This can be diagrammed as ~fiction -> ~stable.
(C) Could be tempting. However, first, we are talking about the politicians' 'intentions', not 'beliefs', and I believe those are two different things. And second, even if we assume they are used synonymously, we cannot say that there is always a divergence between the original authors and the politicians. In the stimulus, it says the interpretations are 'usually portrayed' as authors' intentions. So it is possible that sometimes the intentions of the original authors and the beliefs of the politicians match. This is an MBT question, so eliminate.
(D) The stimulus does not talk about 'written constitutions' in the first place, so nope.
(E) If we are to diagram this, it would be ~illusion -> (stable -> fiction). Not consistent with our diagram, so eliminate.


Hope this helps! Let me know if there's anything incorrect about my reasoning.

[LOGAN a834]

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