Maria:  Calling any state totalitarian is misleading: it implies total state control of all aspects of life. The real...

Naz September 11, 2013

The very first thing that Maria says is her main conclusion: "Calling any state totalitarian is misleading:..." The rest of Maria's statements support her first claim. Maria and James differ in their definition of what makes a state totalitarian.

Maria believes that to be totalitarian a state must be completely totalitarian in every single aspect, and since that is not possible, no state can be correctly called totalitarian. James agrees that no state can be completely totalitarian, but disagrees with Maria over the aptness of the term "totalitarian" because he believes the term describes the nature of a state's ambitions as opposed to the degree of control the state actually exercises.

(A) is CORRECT because it restates Maria's main point. Maria makes the statements to James in order to explain to him that calling any state totalitarian is misleading because no political entity exercising literally total control exists in the real world. Thus, saying that a state is totalitarian would invite the mistaken belief that they are perfectly totalitarian in all aspects, which is not the case.
(B) is incorrect because Maria is not trying to explain what makes a state totalitarian, rather her point is that no state can be totalitarian.
(C) is incorrect because the statement, "therefore, its degree of control is partial," is a subsidiary conclusion that supports Maria's main conclusion, "Calling any state totalitarian is misleading." Remember, the main conclusion will not support any other sentence in the stimulus.
(D) is incorrect because Maria is not trying to point out that no state has even one totalitarian aspect, but that no state can be totalitarian in every aspect.
(E) is incorrect because Maria uses the claim "any system of control is inefficient..." as support for the subsidiary conclusion "therefore, its degree of control is partial," which supports the main conclusion, "Calling any state totalitarian is misleading."

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Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions!

K Powers September 12, 2013

Thanks so much, that was very helpful! I guess I was a bit confused by the way answer A was worded, but it makes sense now.