Q15 - Economist: Many of my colleagues

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: No reason to lower interest rates further.
Evidence: [counterpoint: people want to lower the rates even more to stimulate economic growth, but] Economy is already growing at a sustainable rate.

Answer Anticipation:
This seems like a case of Bad Listening. The reason people want to further reduce interest rates is to stimulate growth. The author responds by saying that growth is currently "sustainable". Well, what does that have to do with the idea of "stimulating growth"? Stimulating growth is a conversation about higher vs. lower rates of growth, not about sustatianable vs. unsustainable rates. So we could prephrase an answer such as "author assumes that if growth rate is sustainable, then it does not need to be stimulated." Or, we could simply debate the conclusion and try to argue "There IS currently some reason to lower interest rates further". Even if sustainable growth DID mean "growth doesn't need to be stimulated", couldn't there be some OTHER, unmentioned reason why people might want to lower interest rates? We could prephrase this sort of flaw as "the author assumes that if one reason for doing something is invalid, then there is NO valid reason for doing that thing."

Correct Answer:
C

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) It in no way relies on the testimony of experts. The premise is that "the economy is already growing sustainably", and that is not presented as the testimony of experts.

(B) Not quite. It confuses "sustainable growth" with "stimulating growth".

(C) Yes! This sounds like a harsh assumption, but the conclusion is harshly worded: "There is NO reason". Even if the author thinks she has shot down her colleagues' argument, she can only conclude "So, stimulating growth does not constitute a valid reason to lower interest rates further".

(D) This extreme assumption was never made. The closest accurate fit would be that the author "takes what is merely one possible reason to lower interest rates to be the only possible reason to lower interest rates".

(E) Does this match? No. The conclusion does not say anything about unsustainable growth. It merely says there is no reason to lower interest rates.

Takeaway/Pattern: This is a good example of a "more than one flaw" misdirect. It's easy to focus on the bad rebuttal language shift between "whether or not we should stimulate growth" and "whether or not growth is currently sustainable". But there is an additional flaw that is signaled by the extreme conclusion: "There is NO reason". This is a close cousin of the classic Unproven vs. Untrue flaw. Just because the author has shut down ONE argument for lowering interest rates doesn't allow her to fly to the opposite extreme and claim that there is NO reason to lower interest rates.

#officialexplanation

[ganbayou]

Hi,

I'm a little confused but is the conclusion the last sentence? "So..."
Or is it after However..?