PrepTest 122, Section 2, Question 25
Cecile's association requires public disclosure of an officer's(63 more words not shown)
The conclusion of the argument(10 more words not shown)
- ACecile will not(14 more words not shown)
- BCecile's office and(12 more words not shown)
- CThe association's requirements(13 more words not shown)
- DThe timber business(11 more words not shown)
- ECecile owns no(5 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Cecile may have no obligation to the association. Could she still have another reason to disclose?
The association requires disclosure in only two cases: the officer can disburse its funds, or the officer sits on a petrochemical company's board. Cecile cannot disburse the funds, and her sole board position is with a timber business. So the facts take her outside the association's stated requirements.
But “the association doesn't require it” is narrower than “there is no reason to do it.” Perhaps Cecile is running for office and wants to be transparent about her investments. Or perhaps she has some other personal reason to disclose. Those are possibilities, not facts about Cecile. They show why checking one organization's rules doesn't settle every reason she might have.
What we’re looking for
To make the conclusion follow, I'd want the answer to close that opening: the association's requirements are the only possible reasons for disclosure. Then eliminating those reasons really would eliminate all reasons at this time.
Working the answers
- A
This concerns a future appointment. The conclusion concerns disclosure now. Even if Cecile will never gain authority to disburse the association's funds, she could still have another reason to disclose her investments today. A doesn't rule out the possibilities our objection raises.
- B
Avoiding a conflict of interest might be one reason someone considers disclosure, so the subject isn't meaningless. But eliminating this particular conflict would not eliminate every other reason Cecile could have. She might still want transparency for a campaign, for example. We need a rule excluding all reasons beyond the association's requirements, not one statement removing a possible concern.
- CCorrect
These requirements are now the only possible reasons for Cecile to disclose. The passage has already established that neither requirement applies to her. With C, there is nowhere else a reason could come from, so the conclusion follows. This is the missing connection between “not required under these rules” and “no reason at all.”
- D
Ownership of the timber business doesn't establish which board Cecile sits on. Sitting on a subsidiary's board isn't automatically sitting on its owner's board. More fundamentally, D doesn't tell us that the association's requirements exhaust Cecile's reasons to disclose. Adding a corporate relationship cannot establish that she has no other reason.
- E
Owning an investment in an industry is different from sitting on a company's board. The association's stated rule concerns the board position, not ownership of investments in that industry. Even if Cecile owns no petrochemical investments, she could still have a reason to disclose her other holdings. E doesn't complete the argument.
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