PrepTest 101, Section 3, Question 1
Francis: Failure to become properly registered to vote(81 more words not shown)
The main issue in dispute(5 more words not shown)
- Awhether changing the(6 more words not shown)
- Bwhy so many(6 more words not shown)
- Cwhat percentage of(6 more words not shown)
- Dwhether local election(6 more words not shown)
- Ewhy the public(7 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Making registration easier sounds useful. If registering requires a special trip to an office and several forms, some people might put it off. Let them register during another routine visit, and we might get more registrations. That's the kind of obstacle Francis has in mind.
But what if people don't think voting is worth the trouble at all? Someone who believes a vote won't change anything might decline even a very easy opportunity to register. Sharon points to that problem: earlier efforts to simplify registration haven't solved it, and most of the unregistered citizens surveyed doubt that their votes would make a difference.
The speakers disagree about what is keeping so many people unregistered. Francis thinks the cumbersome process is an obstacle that simplification would help remove. Sharon thinks the belief about voting's ineffectiveness must change first. We don't need to decide which explanation is right to identify their dispute.
What we’re looking for
Keep registration separate from actually casting a ballot. Francis predicts an effect on both, but the response focuses on why people aren't registering. The answer should capture that disagreement, rather than ask how many registered citizens eventually show up to vote.
Working the answers
- A
This asks whether changing the process would be difficult for the officials who have to change it. Francis calls the current process cumbersome for citizens to use. Those are different difficulties. Neither speaker argues about how hard it would be for an election board to redesign its procedures.
- BCorrect
Why aren't these people registering? Francis points to the process being too cumbersome; Sharon points to the belief that voting won't make a difference. Those explanations lead to conflicting predictions about whether making registration easier, by itself, would increase registration. B identifies the issue underlying that conflict.
- C
This concerns what registered people do afterward. Neither speaker gives a percentage of registered citizens who actually vote. Sharon's explanation concerns people who haven't registered in the first place, so a turnout percentage for those who have registered isn't the dispute.
- D
A process can have improved and still be cumbersome. Perhaps officials removed one form but left several difficult steps. Francis could agree with Sharon that simplification has been attempted while still thinking further simplification would help. We aren't given opposing positions on whether there have been earlier changes.
- E
Sharon says that many people lack confidence in their votes' effect. Neither speaker explains why that belief developed, and Francis doesn't address its origin at all. Identifying a belief as a reason people don't register isn't the same as explaining the cause of that belief.
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