CR: A party cannot be compelled to submit

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A party cannot be compelled to submit to general arbitration unless there is a contractual basis for concluding that the party agreed to do so. However, class arbitration is a specific kind of arbitration that changes the nature of general arbitration to such a degree that it cannot be presumed that parties consented to class arbitration simply by agreeing to submit their disputes to an arbitrator.

Which of the following statements is best supported by the passage above?

A) Generally, class arbitration and general arbitration are used for different kinds of disputes.
B) A company cannot sign a contract with another company that allows it to pursue class arbitration even before opting for general arbitration.
C) In some scenarios, general arbitration can be pursued even if one of the parties is unwilling to get into the arbitration.
D) If the arbitrator decides so, then a company can be subjected to class arbitration because it agreed to settling the disputes through general arbitration.
E) Even if there is a contractual basis for class arbitration, a party cannot be compelled to enter in to it if it prefers to opt for general arbitration instead.

Source: eGMAT

Please post your explanations as well.

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by MartyMurray » Wed Nov 02, 2016 6:13 am
This question is not all that well written.

For one thing, the However in the prompt is incorrectly used, as there is not really any clear contrast being made between the idea presented in the first sentence of the prompt and that presented in the second sentence.

Still, there is a way to get to the right answer.

(A) This is a trap answer that might catch someone who came to the unwarranted, based on what the prompt says, conclusion that the different types of arbitration are used for different kinds of disputes.

(B) Nothing is said about how types of arbitration can be prioritized in contracts or what type of contract a company can sign.

(C) This basically matches what the prompt says.

Since the prompt says "A party cannot be compelled to submit to general arbitration unless there is a contractual basis for concluding that the party agreed to do so," we can infer that if there is such a contractual basis, a party can be compelled to submit to arbitration.

If a party can be compelled, then arbitration can be pursued even if that party is not willing "to get into it".

(D) This is not substantiated by anything said in the prompt. What the prompt says is that agreeing to general arbitration cannot be presumed to imply agreeing to class arbitration. It does not discuss how an arbitrator can handle a situation.

(E) The prompt discusses situations in which there is NO contractual basis for class arbitration, not this specific situation in which there IS a contractual basis for class arbitration.

The correct answer is C.
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by TheGraduate » Wed Nov 02, 2016 9:08 am
Interesting! It's like the answer was hiding in plain sight!! Wouldn't need to read beyond the first line to get that. :)

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by MartyMurray » Wed Nov 02, 2016 1:48 pm
TheGraduate wrote:Interesting! It's like the answer was hiding in plain sight!! Wouldn't need to read beyond the first line to get that. :)
Yup.

Just so you are aware, that simple answer is an example of how many inference question answers work. Sometimes the right answers are even simpler than that one.

For instance, a prompt could be about wages, employment, hours, and unions, and meanwhile the right answer will be a ridiculously simple one that says like "The minimum wage is greater this year than it was last year."

So to get the questions right you have to make sure that you stick to the stated facts and don't start making up some cool, but unsubstantiated, story.
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by TheGraduate » Thu Nov 03, 2016 4:24 am
Hi Marty,
Thank you very much for the insight and for putting the explanation elegantly in plain language.
In this case the simple logic was obscured by seemingly complex jargon and language of the question which caused a kind of distraction.