Q8 - Oscar: Emerging information technologies

[iridium77]

I chose b.) for this one, as it seems to me that if emerging IT's produced a net increase in global wealth, that would allow the poor countries to have the economic resources to acquire the IT's. I sweated over whether it was b.) or d.) on this one.

[timmydoeslsat]

You definitely came down to the two best answers.

Answer choice B can still happen and our argument is ok. There can be a big increase in global wealth and still have these poor countries remain poor. Think...the rich get richer...as the saying goes.

Answer choice D is necessary for the argument however. For Sylvia to say that the technologies will widen the gap, she is assuming that the north will actually have these technologies and that they will actually do a good job to in fact widen the gap.

[iridium77]

So b.) would be a correct answer on a sufficient condition question ?

[timmydoeslsat]

Answer choice B would not be sufficient to get us to the idea of an economic gap growing larger between the northern and southern countries.

If we add the idea of there not being a significant increase of global wealth to our established evidence, it does not let us arrive at the conclusion.

We have no evidence to show that the north will even use these technologies effectively. We cannot prove with choice B that the gap will widen.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Thanks Timmy! I'd like to take a minute and run through this question as well.

The question asks for an assumption on which the argument depends. The argument concludes that the information technologies will widen the gap between the rich and poor countries. Why? Because poor countries will not be able to adopt the new information technologies. This argument establishes that the poor countries will not benefit from the new technologies but that doesn't mean that the technologies will widen the gap between rich and poor. To reach such a conclusion, we would need to know that the rich countries will be able to adopt the new information technologies. Best expressed in answer choice (D).

Incorrect Answers

(A) is out of scope. The argument does not require that the wealth of the northern countries depends on the resources of the southern countries. The best thing about this answer is that "depends, at least in part" is language that is so common on Necessary Assumptions, but that doesn't make it correct here.
(B) is opposite of the argument. The argument assumes that the technology will increase wealth. The technology will not benefit the poorer countries but will increase the divide, only if there is a benefit to the richer countries, thus increasing net total wealth.
(C) is out of scope. The argument is just about the impact of the new information technologies.
(E) is not assumed. The argument does not depend on an "indefinite" increase in the speed of information processing through the technologies discussed.