Q8 - Some years ago, an editorial

[alovitt]

I had a hard time deciding between B and C, but I picked B. For B, the inconsistency is that they defended academic restrictions for the US, but argued against those restrictions enacted by the Soviet gov. Author wants them to explain the differences in reasoning, if there are any.

For C, the general claim could be either, with the alleged exception being the one opposing the claim. I see now how there is not enough evidence to establish that this would be a "general" claim. But would you please explain further how I should go about eliminating this as a contender?

[giladedelman]

Answer (C) says that the author describes an alleged exception to some general claim. But the author never describes any exception; he or she is just saying, hey, you've got these two claims that look pretty contradictory -- in what way are these situations different from each other? There's no indication that either claim is meant as an exception to the other one.

[griffin.811]

I'm not seeing how the second statement isn't an exception to the claim made in the first statement.

First the claim says if you receive gov't funding, you cannot rightly detach yourself from gov't policy.

but then they criticize the Soviet gov't for not allowing scientists to detach themselves from gov't policies.

This seems like an exception to that rule.

I also have another issue. The first statement doesn't exclude the second. The fact that one shouldn't do something, doesn't mean they shouldn't have the right to do it, and that is what this passage suggests.

My biggest issue is that I do not understand how C is unsupported. Anyone think they can help?

Thanks!

Also, I have one other thought, maybe C does happen, and the author does describe an alleged exception. The issue could simply be that this isn't the argumentative technique used here.

[roflcoptersoisoi]

I think C) is wrong because the author doesn’t come up with an exception to a general claim. In fact, the Soviet example which contradicts the general claim stipulated in the preceding sentence is actually met with incredulity (see last sentence of stimulus) by the author and is not simply regarded as an "exception" to the aforementioned claim.