PT14.S4.Q12

PrepTest 14 - Section 4 - Question 12

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Conservative: Support Socialists begin their arguments with an analysis of history, from which they claim to derive certain trends leading inevitably to a socialist future. ███ ██ ███ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███████ █████ ███ █████ ████ ███████████ ███████ ████ ██ ██████████ ████ █████████████ ███████ ███ ███████ ██████ ███████ █████████ ████████████ ███ ██████████ █████████

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Conservative's Argument

The conservative's argument leads to the unstated conclusion that socialist historical analysis doesn't support socialists' conclusions. The conservative claims that socialists think their analysis of trends indicates an inevitable socialist future. But such trends can't be analyzed during the current moment—only in retrospect. This is because history isn't really inevitable, but rather results from accident, contingency, and individual struggle.

In other words, the conservative's argument aims to deny a key assumption of what the conservative thinks socialist analysis aims to accomplish.

Socialist's Argument

The socialist concludes that historical analysis is important to socialist argument, but for different reasons than the conservative thinks. The socialist supports this by explaining that socialists would only work to transform capitalist institutions if they thought history was not inevitable. And transforming institutions requires understanding them, which requires historical analysis.

Aside from supporting the socialist's conclusion, the socialist's premises have an important implication: that socialists indeed work to transform institutions, meaning the conservative is mistaken about what they assume.

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12.

The socialist’s statements imply a ████████ ████ ███ ████████████████ ████ ██ ███████ ██ ███ ████████████ ████ █████ ████

a

it would have ████ ██████████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ █ ███████████ ██████ ██████████ ████ ███ ████████████ ██ ██████████ ███████ █████ ████ ███ ████ ████ ████ ████████ ████

The socialist believes that historical outcomes are not inevitable, so it could also be the case that certain historical outcomes are totally unpredictable. (A) is compatible with the socialist's argument; both could be true at the same time.

8%
b

the apparent inevitability ██ ██████████ ██████ ██ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ██████ █████ ████ ████████ █████████ ████ ████ ████████ ███

This is compatible with the socialist's argument. The socialist's argument indicates that historical outcomes are not inevitable. (B) states this in very strong terms, but that doesn't put it in conflict with the socialist's beliefs. This could be true given the socialist's claims.

15%
c

in the past, ███████ ███████ ██ ██████ ██████████ ████ ██████ ████████ ██ █ █████████████ ██ ██████ ██████████

The socialist doesn't make any claims about the past impact of radical changes to social structures, so there's no conflict with (C). There's no indication that the socialist would disagree with this claim.

3%
d

since socialism cannot █████ ██ ████████ ██ ████████████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ██ █ ██████ ██ ██████████ ████████

It's the conservative, not the socialist, who talks about accident, contingency, and individual struggle. The socialist doesn't weigh in on any of these approaches to changing history. Since the socialist doesn't make any claims about this, there's no conflict with (D).

3%
e

because historical changes ███ ██████ ███████████ ██ ██ ██████████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ █████ ███████ ████████ ██████ █████████ ███████████ ███████ ██ ██████ ██████████

The socialist's argument indicates that socialists work to transform social conditions. If (E) were true, and this were an impossible goal, then socialists' efforts would be absurd. The socialist clearly doesn't think that their movement is absurd, putting (E) in conflict with an assumption necessary to the socialist's argument.

71%

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