PrepTest 127, Section 2, Question 12
Throughout a certain nation, electricity has actually become(52 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the argument(11 more words not shown)
- Atakes for granted(15 more words not shown)
- Btakes for granted(26 more words not shown)
- Cpresumes, without providing(30 more words not shown)
- Doverlooks the possibility(24 more words not shown)
- Efails to take(35 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
The subsidy was meant to help rural residents get electricity, while access in cities has been increasing. That contrast sets up a concern about whether the subsidy is reaching the people it was designed to help.
Then we learn that many of the most isolated rural populations still lack electricity. That is disappointing, but does it establish that the subsidy failed to achieve its purpose? What if it helped 100 rural residents, or 1,000, even though many others remain without service?
The stated purpose is to help rural residents gain access. We haven't been told that only reaching every rural resident would count as success. A program could make substantial progress toward that purpose without solving the entire problem.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, I'd look for the possibility of partial success. The author treats the remaining unmet need as enough to declare failure without examining how many other rural residents may have benefited.
Working the answers
- A
The author doesn't claim the same purpose could have been achieved without a subsidy. Whether an unsubsidized power company could have supplied electricity is a separate question. The argument evaluates this subsidy's outcome.
- B
Translate the description into the groups here: it says that benefiting city residents would itself make the rural subsidy a failure. That isn't the reasoning. The author points to rural residents who still lack electricity, rather than treating every benefit to city residents as disqualifying.
- C
The argument doesn't broaden the subsidy's intended purpose to include other groups. The criticism is that rural populations still lack access. We don't need to assume it was also intended to benefit city or suburban residents to understand that criticism.
- D
Urban residents might also depend on the subsidy, but helping them wouldn't resolve whether the intended rural population had been helped. This directs us toward the needs of another group rather than the possible success the author has overlooked.
- ECorrect
Many rural residents could have gained electricity while many others remained without it. Those facts can coexist. The people still without access don't establish that the subsidy achieved nothing for its intended beneficiaries.
Think of a hunger-relief effort that feeds people while hunger remains a serious problem. The continuing problem doesn't erase the benefit to the people who received food. Likewise, the continuing lack of electricity in isolated areas doesn't by itself establish that the subsidy failed to help rural residents.
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