Critical Reasoning

As one who has always believed that truth is our nation's surest weapon in the propaganda war against our foes, I am distressed by reports of "disinformation" campaigns by American intelligence agents in Western Europe. In a disinformation campaign, untruths are disseminated through gullible local journalists in order to damage the interests of our enemies and protect our own. Those who defend this practice say that lying is necessary to counter Soviet disinformation campaigns aimed at damaging America's political interests. These apologists contend that one must fight fire with fire. I would point out to the apologists that the fire department finds water more effective.

The author's main point is that

(A) although disinformation campaigns may be effective, they are unacceptable on ethical grounds
(B) America's moral standing in the world depends on its adherence to the truth
(C) the temporary political gains produced by disinformation campaigns generally give way to long-term losses
(D) Soviet disinformation campaigns have done little to damage America's standing in Europe
(E) disinformation campaigns do not effectively serve the political interests of the United States

The author is clearly against the US disinformation campaign. Some claim that the US disinformation campaign is necessary to counter Soviet disinformation campaign, which in turn is trying to damage the US's political interests. Author believes that a disinformation campaign will not help protect US political interests; rather, the truth is the best weapon.

I would choose E.

(A) talks about ethics, which is out of scope
(B) talks about morals, which is also out of scope
(C) no mention of long-term losses are made
(D) not stated in the passage
(E) refers to the political interests of the US and restates the author's belief that the US disinformation campaign is not effective

kvcpk wrote:As one who has always believed that truth is our nation's surest weapon in the propaganda war against our foes, I am distressed by reports of "disinformation" campaigns by American intelligence agents in Western Europe. In a disinformation campaign, untruths are disseminated through gullible local journalists in order to damage the interests of our enemies and protect our own. Those who defend this practice say that lying is necessary to counter Soviet disinformation campaigns aimed at damaging America's political interests. These apologists contend that one must fight fire with fire. I would point out to the apologists that the fire department finds water more effective.

The author's main point is that

(A) although disinformation campaigns may be effective, they are unacceptable on ethical grounds
(B) America's moral standing in the world depends on its adherence to the truth
(C) the temporary political gains produced by disinformation campaigns generally give way to long-term losses
(D) Soviet disinformation campaigns have done little to damage America's standing in Europe
(E) disinformation campaigns do not effectively serve the political interests of the United States

yep, E too

IMO B

Please post OA

IMO: B

becoz the main point on which the whole argument is based is " Truth".

"untruths are disseminated through gullible local journalists in order to damage the interests of our enemies and protect our own. "

This question has made its rounds and although I could not find it as an LSAT question, this has all the marks of an LSAT "main idea" question. There are two types of LSAT main idea questions, those that are based on a particular sentence in the stimulus that can be pointed to as the main idea of the entire passage and the more difficult questions, like this one that has the main point a little bit buried in the stimulus - usually with a negation of the previous statement - such as "but this is wrong" and then the main point would be what the negation of the assertion made in the prior sentence.

I believe that this is the case here. The third to the last sentence establishes what the apologists contend, that lying is necessary to counter Soviet disinformation aimed at damaging America's political interests. Restated, we might say that the apologists believe that lying can serve America's interests (by preventing damage from the Soviet disinformation). The next two sentences indicate that this position is not true because fighting fire with fire is not effective. So read the main point as "the apologists are wrong". Then state what they are wrong about and it reads as "it is not in America's interests to lie or use a disinformation campaign." That makes E the correct answer

You could also get to the answer through process of elimination. To help your GMAT studies you should pretend that this is an inference or must be true question. If you approach it like that then you could see this as being an inference question, and fairly straight-forward, too.

So let's eliminate the wrong answers: A) can be eliminated because we are not told anything about the morality of the campaigns and in fact they are found - through the reasoning above - to be ineffective. So A is wrong twice. B) B also goes beyond the stimulus as we are not told what America's moral standing relies on. C) Do we know that there are any gains, even temporary ones, from lying? This again goes beyond the stimulus. D) Again, ask the question "what are we told about how much Soviet campaigns have damaged American reputation?" We are not told anything, so this can be eliminated. You see that the best way to treat this from a GMAT perspective is to treat this as a must be true and eliminate the choices that can be false.

This question has been posted a few times including this discussion from January of this year. https://www.beatthegmat.com/main-point-q ... tml#237363. And this post from a couple of years ago discussing the other question that was part of the pair - one stimulus was the focus of two questions. https://www.beatthegmat.com/the-truth-t13554.html.

Thanks David for your help. Are these type of questions asked on the real GMAT? If so, what would be the difficult range?

kvcpk - This is a good question and I am glad that you posted it. Even if this is an LSAT question (and as I said, it may not be), it is still good because we can use the process of elimination and it teaches us to deal with something unexpected. Also, even though there is a special strategy that might be employed, this question works with the GMAT strategy for inference questions.

As to whether a GMAT question can ask for "main point", "main idea" or "main conclusion" that is certainly within the bounds of the inference type of question and we do have questions like this in the Veritas CR books 1 and 2. The interesting thing about this particular question is the style. A GMAT question would probably not have you interpret an analogy like "fight fire with water" to understand that you are negating a particular point of view and then the main point is the opposite of an assertion made earlier in the argument.

But you might as well be ready for anything that is within the bounds of the GMAT and this is because it can be solved with techniques that are used on Official GMAT questions. It is also a good demonstration of staying focused and not getting distracted by strange premises.

As to the difficulty, it is tough to say, if approached properly inference questions can seem straightforward but that does not mean that other test takers don't miss them. I would put this above average, though, because the wording would likely confuse people.

I will search to see if there are any official GMAT questions that have the phrasing "main point."