PrepTest 136, Section 4, Question 3
Some members have criticized the club's president for(55 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(8 more words not shown)
- AThe previous club(11 more words not shown)
- BAt the time(20 more words not shown)
- CDr. Hines accepted(11 more words not shown)
- DThe club president(12 more words not shown)
- EThe club's previous(14 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe both presidents should have asked first.
The current president is criticized for inviting a speaker without consulting the club. The response points to an earlier president who hired an accountant without consulting the club. But saying that someone did something before does not show that it was appropriate then, much less that it is appropriate now.
Imagine the earlier president also overstepped the club's rules. Repeating that mistake would give us two questionable decisions, not a defense of the second one. Before using the earlier hiring as a model, we need some reason to treat it as an acceptable model.
What we’re looking for
For this necessary-assumption question, that gives us a clear prediction: the previous president must have acted appropriately in hiring the accountant without consultation. We may still need to ask whether hiring an accountant and inviting a speaker are comparable. But if the first action was itself inappropriate, the argument's offered defense has already fallen apart.
Working the answers
- A
The argument uses the accountant's hiring as its precedent. It does not require another precedent involving a speaker. Even if the previous president never invited any speakers, the author could still try to justify this invitation by appealing to the accountant decision.
- B
The members' expectations might help us assess what consultation was appropriate. But the argument does not require most members to have expected no consultation. They could have expected to be consulted even if the president was entitled to act without them. The necessary point is that the earlier action was appropriate, not that a majority had this particular expectation.
- C
Whether Dr. Hines accepted tells us what happened after the invitation. The criticism concerns the president's decision to issue that invitation without asking the members first. An invitation could be appropriate or inappropriate whether the invitee accepts or declines.
- D
Read the direction carefully. This gives the president more freedom when hiring an accountant than when hiring a speaker. That makes the earlier hiring an easier case to justify; it does not show that the same conduct is acceptable in the more restricted speaker case. Nor does the argument need unequal discretion. Equal discretion in the two situations could be enough for the comparison to work.
- ECorrect
The earlier hiring must have been appropriate for it to serve as the argument's defense of the present invitation. If the previous president also acted improperly, pointing to that conduct supplies no justification. E is required by this reasoning, even though it does not by itself establish that the two kinds of decisions should be treated alike.
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