Self-study
Economist: Conclusion Global recessions can never be prevented, for Support they could be prevented only if they were predictable. ███ ███████████ █████ ███ ████ ██████████ ██ █████ █████████ ████████████ ████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ██████ ███████████
The Economist's Leap from 'Haven't' to 'Can't'
The economist concludes that global recessions can never be prevented. Here's the reasoning:
Premise 1: Recessions could be prevented only if they were predictable. In other words, predictability is a necessary condition for prevention.
Premise 2: Economists, using the best techniques at their disposal, consistently fail to accurately predict global recessions.
Premise 1 would allow the author to establish that recession can't be prevented if he can establish that recessions can't be predicted. But do we actually know that recessions aren't predictable? The second premise tells us that economists have failed to predict recessions using their current best techniques. That's not the same thing as establishing that recessions are unpredictable. It's possible that they can be predicted, but just haven't been in the past.
Anticipation
Because this is a Flaw question, we know the conclusion doesn't logically follow from the premises. The economist assumes that because economists have failed to predict recessions so far, recessions are unpredictable. But past failure doesn't prove permanent impossibility. "Hasn't been done" and "can't be done" are very different claims, and the argument doesn't give us enough to bridge that gap.
20.
The economist's argument is most ██████████ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ██
a
presupposes in a ███████ ███ ██████████ ████ ██ ████████ ██ █████████
(A) describes circular reasoning, which is when the conclusion is assumed as a premise. You might be attracted to this because the argument feels like it's just asserting its conclusion without real proof. But circular reasoning requires the conclusion to actually appear as one of the premises, and that's not what happens here. The conclusion is that global recessions can never be prevented. Neither premise says this. The first premise establishes a necessary condition for preventability, and the second premise says economists have failed to predict recessions. Those are distinct claims from the conclusion, even if the reasoning that connects them to the conclusion is flawed.
b
fails to establish ████ ██████████ █████ ██ ██ ████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ██████ ██████████
The author didn’t need to establish this, because no part of the argument assumed that any economists claimed the ability to predict recessions.
c
treats the predictability ██ ██ ██████ █████ ██ ████████ ███ ███ █████ ██ ██ ████████████ ██ █ ██████████████ ████ ███████ ███ ██████████
(C) says the author treats predictability (a necessary condition for prevention) as though it were sufficient for prevention. That would mean the author argues: "Recessions are predictable, therefore they'll be prevented." But the author assumes that recessions are not predictable, and concludes that they can't be prevented. That's denying a necessary condition to deny the thing that depends on it, which is a logically valid move. The flaw in the argument isn't in how the author uses the relationship between predictability and prevention. It's in how the author arrives at the claim that recessions aren't predictable in the first place.
d
fails to address ███ ███████████ ████ ███ ██████████ █████████ ██ ██████████ ███ ███ ██████████ ██ ██████ ██████████ ████ █████████████ ███████
This captures the flaw. The economist's premises only tell us what has happened so far: economists have failed to predict recessions using the best currently available techniques. But what if those techniques significantly improve? If they did, economists might eventually be able to predict recessions. The argument never addresses this possibility, and that's why the leap from "economists haven't predicted recessions" to "recessions can never be prevented" doesn't hold up.
e
implicitly bases an █████████ ████ █████████ ████ ███ █████ ██████ ██ ███ ███████████ ████ ███ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████████
(E) is tempting because it sounds like it's describing something close to the argument's reasoning. But it has two problems. First, the conclusion isn't that recessions won't occur. The conclusion is that they can't be prevented. Recessions will still happen; the economist is saying we can't stop them. Second, the economist doesn't actually have "information" that recessions are unpredictable. That's the very thing the economist assumes without justification. The second premise tells us that economists have failed to predict recessions so far, not that recessions are inherently unpredictable. (E) treats the economist's unjustified assumption as though it were established information.