Criminologist: The main purpose of most criminal organizations is to generate profits. The ongoing revolutions in bi...

shunhe on July 22, 2020

Hi @Harper,

Thanks for the question! So let’s sum up this stimulus first. We’re told that most criminal organizations’ main purposes are to make profits. And we know that biotech and information technology are going to generate big profits. So, the criminologist concludes, criminal organizations will definitely try to get more involved in those areas.

Now we’re asked to find something that would make the conclusion properly inferred; in other words, this is a strengthen with sufficient premise question. Now let’s take a look at (C). If it were true that criminal organizations are already heavily involved in every activity that promises to generate enormous profits, then could we conclude like the argument did that criminal organizations will definitely try to get more involved in those areas? No, not at all. After all, we don’t care if they’re already involved or not, we care about if they try to get more involved. And knowing that they’re involved now doesn’t help us conclude that they’ll try to get more involved; in fact, if they’re already so involved now, you might think that they won’t bother trying to get more involved. Since (C) doesn’t make the conclusion follow, it’s not the right answer.

Now take a look at (D). Let’s say it’s true that any organizations whose main purpose is to generate profits will try to get more involved in any technological revolution that promises to generate enormous profits. Well, if that’s true, we know that criminal organizations fall into this category of organizations, and the biotech and information technology revolutions fall into that category of revolutions. So then it would be true that they’d try to get more involved in those technological revolutions. Since (D) assures the conclusion, it’s the right answer.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.