PrepTest 143, Section 1, Question 7
Political advertisement: Sherwood campaigns as an opponent of(42 more words not shown)
The argument in the political(11 more words not shown)
- Abases a crucial(6 more words not shown)
- Bfails to consider(11 more words not shown)
- Cmistakes something that(17 more words not shown)
- Dmakes a personal(16 more words not shown)
- Etakes for granted(18 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What if Sherwood voted against every tax increase and kept losing? The advertisement gives us the council's record, not Sherwood's voting record. Sherwood could have spent all ten years objecting while a majority passed the increases anyway. In that case, the tax increases would be real, and Sherwood's opposition to higher taxes would be real too.
Think of Congress passing a tax bill. That doesn't tell us that every member supported it. A group can make a decision despite some members' objections. The advertisement ignores that possibility and treats the council's decisions as evidence against this particular member.
What we’re looking for
The flaw answer should describe that transfer: from what the council did as a group to what Sherwood, one member, supposedly supported.
Working the answers
- A
More years of the same kind of evidence wouldn't solve the problem. Even a long record of council tax increases wouldn't establish Sherwood's individual votes. The flaw concerns whose behavior the evidence describes, not merely how small the sample is.
- B
The argument doesn't call the tax increases unavoidable. It treats Sherwood's removal as a way to break the pattern. A distinction between unavoidable and undesirable doesn't describe the unsupported attribution to Sherwood.
- C
There isn't a rule giving a condition that guarantees an outcome and then confusing it with a requirement for that outcome. The advertisement moves from the council's decisions to a member's position. C describes a different mistake.
- D
The attack is based on a political record that the advertisement wrongly attributes to Sherwood. It isn't using an unrelated personal insult to dismiss Sherwood's position on taxes. The problem is that this group record may tell us nothing about how Sherwood voted.
- ECorrect
The group is the city council, whose record includes repeated tax increases. The individual is Sherwood. The advertisement assumes the individual shares responsibility for the group's tax-raising stance, overlooking that Sherwood could have opposed the increases throughout.
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