When the manufacturers in a given country are slower to adopt new technologies than their foreign competitors are, their production costs will fall more slowly than their foreign competitors’ costs will. ███ ██ ████████████████ ██████████ █████ ████ ████ ███████ ████ █████ ███████ ██████████████ █████ ███ █████ █████████████ ████ ██ ██████ ██ █████ █████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██ █████ ███████ ███████████ ████ ███ ████ █ ███████████ █████████████ ██████ █████ █████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██ █████ ███████ ███████████ ████ ████ ███████ ████ ████████ ███ ██ ███ ██████ ███████
The stimulus is talking about local manufacturers in a given country, in comparison to foreign competitors. We can kick those ideas up to simplify things as we break down the stimulus.
(1) slower to adopt tech → costs fall more slowly
(2) costs fall more slowly → prices fall more slowly
(3) prices fall more slowly → squeezed out of global market
chain: slower to adopt tech → costs fall more slowly → prices fall more slowly → squeezed out of global market
There are a number of statements that have to be true based on our conditional chain. For instance, the collapsed form of the chain (or its contrapositive):
slower to adopt tech → squeezed out of global market
/squeezed out of global market → /slower to adopt tech
But any of the sub-chains making up the greater chain must also be true, as must their contrapositives, and indeed the contrapositives of the original conditional statements. That's a lot to hunt for, so we can just compare answer choices to our conditional chain and see if they match.
If the statements above are █████ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ██ ████ ██ ███ █████ ██ █████
If the manufacturers ██ ███ ███████ █████ █████ ███████ ██ ██ ███████ ████ ████ ████████ █████ ███████ ███████████ ███ ██ ███ ██████ ███████
raise prices → competitorssqueezed out of global market
(A) doesn't have to be true, because it goes beyond the scope of the stimulus. The stimulus never talks about local manufacturers raising prices. It only talks about what happens when local manufacturers are unable to lower prices fast enough.
If manufacturers in ███ ███████ ████ ████ ████████ ███ ██ ███ ██████ ███████ ████ █████ ████ █████ ███████ ███████████ ████ ███████ ███ ████████████ ████ ███████ ████ ████ █████
squeezed out of global market → slower to adopt tech
(B) doesn't have to be true—it confuses the sufficient and necessary conditions of the conditional chain in the stimulus. By following the chain, we can correctly infer that if local manufacturers are slower to adopt tech, then they will be squeezed out of the global market. But we don't know if that's the only way local manufacturers can be squeezed out; (B) could be false.
If a country’s ███████ ███████████ ███ █████ █████ ██████████ █████ ████ ███████ ████ ███ ███████████ ███ █████████████ ████ ████ █████ ███████ ███████████ ████ ████ ███████ ███ █████████████ ███████████
costs fall more slowly → competitorsnew manufacturing techniques
(C) doesn't have to be true because it goes beyond the scope of the stimulus, which never mentions the idea of new manufacturing techniques. The stimulus talks about new technology, but we don't know if that's the same as new techniques.
If a country’s █████████████ █████ ███ ████████████ ██ ███ ████ ████ ██ █████ ███████ ████████████ ███████ █████ ████ ██ ████ ██ ███████ ███ █████ ███ ██ ███ ██████ ███████
/slower to adopt tech → /squeezed out of global market AND competitors/squeezed out of global market
(D) doesn't have to be true for two reasons. First, it confuses sufficient and necessary conditions. The stimulus lets us infer that if local manufacturers are slower to adopt tech, then they will be squeezed out of the global market. The correct contrapositive would be that if local manufacturers were not squeezed out of the global market, then they adopted new technology at least as fast as their competitors. (D) improperly negates both conditions without reversing them.
Second, (D) exceeds the scope of the stimulus. The stimulus never talks about the conditions under which foreign competitors could be squeezed out.
If a country’s █████████████ ███ █████ █████ ██████ ██ ███████ ██ █████ ███████ ███████████ ████ ████ █████ ████ ████ █████ ███ ██████████ ██ █████ ██ ████ ██ █████ ███████ ███████████ ███
/prices fall more slowly → /slower to adopt tech
(E) restates the contrapositive of a conditional chain in the stimulus—which must be true. If local manufacturers' prices fall no more slowly than those of their foreign competitors, then those manufacturers' costs
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