PrepTest 106, Section 1, Question 9
Political commentators see recent policies of the government(31 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the argument(3 more words not shown)
- Athe term "policies"(6 more words not shown)
- Bthe political commentators(7 more words not shown)
- Ca claim is(15 more words not shown)
- Dthe claim that(15 more words not shown)
- Eit is assumed(15 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
A poll tells us what people think. Does it tell us whether the commentators are wrong? Calling a policy “appeasement” concerns what the government is doing—roughly, making concessions to avoid conflict—not how many people accept that description. We would want to examine the policy and the basis for the commentators' assessment. Most people could reject the label and still be mistaken.
For example, imagine the policy does make the kind of concessions the commentators describe, but most respondents have been given an incomplete account of it. The poll could accurately report widespread disagreement while the commentators' assessment remained correct. We don't have to prove that happened. Its possibility shows why counting opinions doesn't settle the underlying issue.
What we’re looking for
The flaw question asks us to identify that unsupported move: most people think the assessment is false, so the author declares it false. We need evidence about the claim, not merely how widely it is rejected.
Working the answers
- A
“Policies” refers to the government's approach toward Country X throughout. There is no switch between two meanings that does work in the reasoning. For comparison, using “right” first to mean correct and then to mean politically conservative could create a meaning change. Nothing comparable happens with “policies” here.
- B
Naming the commentators wouldn't repair the inference. We could know every name and still be unable to establish that the assessment is false merely from most people's disagreement. The missing support concerns the substance of the assessment, not the identities of those making it.
- CCorrect
The commentators' assessment is the claim, the poll provides the majority's rejection of it, and the conclusion treats that rejection as enough to establish that the assessment is mistaken. But a majority can be wrong. The argument supplies no further reason that the public's judgment should settle this issue.
- D
The author states that the commentators are mistaken and then offers the poll as a reason. Those are different claims. “Most people disagree with them” can be true even if “They are mistaken” is false, which is precisely the problem. Weak support isn't the same as simply repeating the conclusion as a premise.
- E
This would fit an argument that individual citizens refuse to make concessions, so their country as a whole must refuse to make concessions too. That isn't the reasoning here. The citizens' opinions about a policy are being used to judge the truth of an assessment, not to transfer a personal characteristic to the country.
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