PrepTest 115, Section 2, Question 14
Activist: Although the environmental bill before the legislature(52 more words not shown)
The activist's argumentation is most(8 more words not shown)
- Apresumes, without providing(9 more words not shown)
- Bpresumes, without providing(18 more words not shown)
- Cfails to consider(17 more words not shown)
- Dfails to specify(13 more words not shown)
- Etakes for granted(12 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What if the environmental benefit is worth the economic cost?
We can accept that the bill would have mainly negative economic consequences. That doesn't tell us whether passing it would be sound policy overall. Suppose a modest economic cost would protect a forest the country has good reason to preserve. That could be a tradeoff worth making. A devastating economic cost for almost no environmental benefit would be a different situation.
The activist is right that popularity alone doesn't make a bill good. But neither does an economic downside automatically make it bad. We need to compare the reasons for and against the bill, and the argument gives us only the economic case against it.
What we’re looking for
The flaw question asks us to identify what that leaves out. I'd predict the possibility that environmental or other benefits outweigh the economic harm. We don't have to prove that this bill deserves support. We only need to show why the economic evidence hasn't settled the recommendation.
Working the answers
- A
Telling legislators to act like great leaders doesn't assume that they already are great leaders. The activist is urging a standard of conduct. The problem is the claim that rejecting this particular bill meets that standard, given that we haven't considered all the relevant reasons.
- B
The conclusion recommends how legislators ought to vote. It doesn't predict how likely the bill is to pass or claim that legislators will in fact reject anything with negative economic consequences. We need to evaluate the recommendation, not explain the political odds.
- CCorrect
The argument doesn't consider noneconomic reasons that might outweigh the economic reasons for rejection. Protecting the environment could be such a reason. Until we know how the competing considerations compare, negative economic consequences alone don't establish that voting against the bill is the sound choice.
This doesn't require treating the economy as unimportant. Both sides can matter, and one can outweigh the other. The flaw is deciding the overall question after considering only one kind of consequence.
- D
Legislators' usual habits don't establish what they should do about this bill. They might normally consider economic effects carefully, carelessly, or not at all. None of those possibilities fills in the missing comparison between this bill's economic costs and other possible benefits.
- E
The activist calls this bill popular and economically harmful. That isn't a claim that every popular bill is economically harmful. A person could think many popular bills are economically sound while opposing this one. E turns a judgment about a particular bill into a universal rule the argument doesn't state or need.
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