PrepTest 107, Section 1, Question 2
Politician: The funding for the new nationwide health-awareness(87 more words not shown)
The smoker's response to the(2 more words not shown)
- Aoffers a counterexample(7 more words not shown)
- Bpresents an alternative(7 more words not shown)
- Cargues that the(12 more words not shown)
- Dquestions the accuracy(11 more words not shown)
- Eillustrates how the(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
If an unhealthy habit makes you responsible for financing this campaign, what about people who regularly eat unhealthy food?
That's the smoker's challenge. The politician moves from the health problems caused by smoking to the claim that smokers should pay. The smoker accepts the health concern, then gives another case that fits the politician's reasoning: people whose food choices cause just as many serious health problems.
Imagine applying that reasoning to someone buying a fast-food meal. The smoker says making that person finance the campaign would be unreasonable. The point is to make us question the rule used against smokers. The smoker isn't volunteering fast-food customers as the next group to tax.
What we’re looking for
We're describing how the smoker responds. I'd call it an analogy: a similar case is used to expose a problem with the reasoning. A choice might call the food purchasers a counterexample instead. Either description can fit if it captures the move from this comparable case to a challenge to the politician's argument.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
The counterexample is the group purchasing high-fat, high-cholesterol foods. They meet the politician's description of people whose habits cause serious health problems. Yet, according to the smoker, making them pay would be unreasonable. That challenges the claim that the health consequences of a habit are enough to justify this funding burden.
- B
The smoker doesn't offer a different way to fund the campaign. Saying that taxing food purchasers would be unreasonable is almost the opposite of proposing them as an alternative source of money. The smoker attacks the proposed solution without supplying another one.
- C
An inadequate funding method would fail to do the job, perhaps because the tax couldn't raise enough money. The smoker never makes that calculation. The complaint is that the burden is unreasonable, even if the tax could bring in everything the campaign needs.
- D
The smoker doesn't question whether cigarettes cause serious health problems. In fact, the comparison treats that harm as established and adds another harmful habit. Challenging the step from a fact to a policy is different from challenging the fact itself.
- E
This would require a claim that the tax makes the health problem worse. For example, someone might argue that higher taxes leave smokers less able to afford healthy food. That is a possible argument, but it isn't the smoker's argument here. The smoker gives a comparable case, not a chain of harmful consequences from the proposal.
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