In one of my tests at school, there was this multiple choice question which asked students to choose answer having the same meaning with this sentence "Men hold no better positions in society than women do."
The answers were:
A. Women are in better positions in society than men are
B. Women and men hold the same positions in society
C. Men are not as good as women in society
The correct answer was A, but I'm confused between A and B, because I think "no better than" refers to "the same", not acts as a comparative adjective.
Can someone explain why A is correct?
Best Answer
The question is flawed and impossible to answer
StoneyB is correct here, none of the answers are correct. The question, as it is currently asked, has no answer.
Let's think about this before we even address the question itself. When comparing two specific positions, there are only three possible outcomes:
I assume you see that I'm using M and W to refer to men and women.
Now, we introduce the statement (I will refer to this as "the statement" later on):
This tells us that (M > W) is not a possibility. This is the only conclusion we can draw from this statement.
Therefore, we are left with the following possibilities:
Men could have equal positions to women.
Men could have inferior positions to women.
It's also possible that some men hold equal positions to women, and some men hold inferior positions to women.
Now let's discuss why every answer is wrong
Incorrect.
As I addressed before, we cannot know for certain if (M = W) or (M < W). Both could be possible (separately, or at the same time). "The statement" never confirmed that (M < W) is the only remaining option, and therefore we cannot conclude that answer A is conclusively correct.
We could say that it's possible, but not that it is definitively correct.
"The statement" and answer A do not have the same meaning. They could possibly both be correct at the same time; but that does not mean they mean the same thing!
Consider the following statements:
Are these statements both correct? Yes.
Do these statement have the same meaning? No.
Incorrect.
The same argument is true here. We cannot know for certain if (M = W) or (M < W). Both could be possible (separately, or at the same time). "The statement" never confirmed that (M = W) is the only remaining option, and therefore we cannot conclude that answer B is conclusively correct.
We could say that it's possible, but not that it is definitively correct.
"The statement" and answer B do not have the same meaning. They could possibly both be correct at the same time; but that does not mean they mean the same thing!
Incorrect.
This like comparing apples and oranges. Just because you can compare the position of men and women objectively, does not mean that you can apply those conclusions to the inherent worth of men and women.
Even if I state that shooting someone in the head is a better way to kill a man, compared to being kind to him; that does not inherently mean that I think shooting people in the head is better than being kind to people.
Regardless of whether the examinator made a mistake or not, A and B should always be considered equally correct or incorrect. Every argument you can make for A being (in)correct will automatically apply to B too, and vice versa.