Sufficient & Necessary Questions - - Question 23

Politician:  Unless our nation redistributes wealth, we will be unable to alleviate economic injustice and our curren...

LillCarr March 3, 2020

Letter B

I don't understand, was I supposed to create a chain to figure this one out?

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Ravi March 3, 2020

@Cammy,

Great question. There are some diagrammable statements in this
stimulus, so it wouldn't hurt to make a few diagrams if you're having
trouble seeing what inference you can push out.

The first diagrammable statement is that if we don't distribute
wealth, then we'll have intolerable economic inequalities.

Don't distribute wealth - >intolerable economic inequalities

The second diagrammable statement is if we have intolerable economic
inequalities, then we'll have violence

intolerable economic inequalities - >violence

We can chain these together to get

Don't distribute wealth - >intolerable economic inequalities - >violence

From this, we know that if we don't distribute wealth, then we'll have
violence. The contrapositive of this chain is that if we don't have
violence, then we must distribute wealth

don't have violence - >don't have intolerable economic
inequalities - >must distribute wealth

The politician ends the argument by telling us that we must do
whatever is necessary to stop the violence. The contrapositive of our
chain tells us that redistributing wealth is necessary to stop
violence, so we know the politician believes that we must redistribute
wealth.

(B) says, "It is our nation's responsibility to redistribute wealth."

This is the inference we can push out by combining the statements in
the stimulus and is the implication of the argument that the
politician presents, so it must be true. Thus, (B) is the correct
answer choice.

Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any other questions!