Q24 - Politicians and Tarriffs

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Necessary Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Tariffs are unpopular. Therefore, politicians who oppose tariffs will get more votes.

Answer Anticipation:
This argument commits a common flaw - False Choice. The argument treats tariffs as the only - or, at least, the most important - consideration. For this argument to work, the author has to establish that people are basing their votes on tariffs.

Correct Answer:
(A)

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Bingo. I might not pick it right away, but this tells me about what certain groups are basing their votes on. To test, I'd negate - Tariff supporters are significantly more likely to vote on that subject than opponents. If that's the case, then politicians might get more traction by supporting tariffs, since most tariff opponents will base their vote on something else. This kills the argument, so it's the answer.

(B) Reversal/Degree. This answer talks about why politicians vote the way they do, whereas the argument is about what politicians should do. Also, this answer is too extreme to be necessary - the argument talks about some votes (those on tariffs), not on all votes.

(C) Out of scope. The argument is about tariffs on particular products, not general tariffs.

(D) Degree. This answer is way too extreme in talking about "never support[ing] measures". The stimulus is about tariffs, not all measures. It's also about likelihood, which is less extreme.

(E) Out of scope. The stimulus states that people oppose them. The argument doesn't care about whether people know they'd be hurt by them, just whether they vote based on it. Even if people aren't hurt by tariffs, they could still vote against politicians who support them. In short, knowledge of the effects of something isn't necessary to oppose it.

Takeaway/Pattern:
When an argument considers a factor that would lead to a given result, there's often a gap in that other factors could override the stated one.

#officialexplanation

[11jd55]

Would someone mind helping me with this question? I guessed A) originally which was right, but changed it to E) during review.

E isn't great either, and I'm guessing it's wrong because it is more or less stated. Still though, I don't see how with A the supporters of tariffs being not more likely to vote for a politician is a necessary assumption, especially if these supporters make up a very small % (which we're not told).

[Jonathan.a.schw]

E is irrelevant because regardless if people know or not, they oppose it in our instance. And the gap is how opposition does or does not lead to reelection. Thus, A is the assumption we're seeking, because it's saying that opposition voters are NO LESS LIKELY to reelect the politician on their side than support voters. Negating this (that opposition voters are less likely than the support voters) would destroy the conclusion.

[EmilyL849]

Hi, Gurus

I got to answer (A) by eliminating all other choices, but the negation of (A) does not seem to destroy the argument. So I'm thinking must be an error in my reasoning.

So, the negation of (A) "supporters of tariffs are significantly more likely than opponents to base their vote for a politician on the politician's stand on this issue". From the stimulus, we know a small portion benefits from tariffs while most people are opposed to them. However, we do not know how large a supporter population is. In order for this negation to work, we would need to make an additional assumption that supporters are large enough to make an impact on election results. What if the supporters are only those who benefit from tariffs? Then, whether they vote based on tariffs would matter much and politicians are indeed better off by voting against tariffs even if opponents are less likely to vote based on tariff issues. In summary, the conclusion that politicians are more likely to be reelected by voting against holds true.

I have difficulties on necessary assumption questions, because after negation I often still feel like conclusion is not completely destroyed like this...
Is there error in my way of negation?

Thank you!

[ohthatpatrick]

I think your error is just in terms of what you think the Negation Test is supposed to do / show.

Necessary Assumption can be interpreted as:
"Which answer, if negated, most weakens the argument"

We're not expecting a correct answer, when negated, to destroy the conclusion. Teachers and books often overzealously sell students on the destructive quality of a negated answer. In reality, if often just opens up room for doubt or severs the relevance of the premise to the conclusion.

Check out this simple example:
All boys love chocolate. Thus, Andy loves chocolate.

What does this author need to assume?
(A) Andy is a boy

If we negate that does it destroy the conclusion?
i.e., if we knew that Andy was a girl would that prove that she does NOT love chocolate? Of course not. The conclusion could still be true. We've just badly weakened the argument because we've destroyed the connection between the premise and the conclusion.

Hope this helps.

[LizS111]

What about Q25 on this preptest (PT 77 S2):

"Among small to medium sized marine mammals such as seals and dolphins, the longer an animal can stay submerged during a dive, the greater depth the animal can reach. Dolphins can dive to greater depths than norther fur seals can, and elephants seals can stay submerged longer than Weddell seals can."


That one doesnt have forum opportunities, and it makes 0 sense to me.

[dmitry]

@LizS111 Feel free to start a new thread for any questions that haven't been addressed yet. I put up an official explanation for #25. I hope it helps! Let me know if you have any questions about it.