PrepTest 148, Section 4, Question 5
A commission has been formed to report on(55 more words not shown)
The conclusion of the argument(10 more words not shown)
- ACommission members who(21 more words not shown)
- BNews organizations should(27 more words not shown)
- CThe commission will(25 more words not shown)
- DIf commission members(29 more words not shown)
- EThe commission's report(24 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What if the members all agree? Each could go on the news, give a personal opinion, and say essentially the same thing. Speaking individually doesn't establish that they are speaking with conflicting voices.
Let's keep the rule we were given: an effective report requires a unified commission. If the commission can't speak with one voice, the report won't be effective. But we haven't established that the members' public comments prevent that unity.
What we’re looking for
The question asks us to make the conclusion follow. Then close that gap: give us a rule saying these early public statements rule out a unified voice. Once the stated behavior establishes a lack of unity, the existing rule gets us to an ineffective report.
Working the answers
- A
Wanting to produce an effective report doesn't establish whether the report will be effective. The members could sincerely care about success and still undermine it, or they could care and remain unified. A doesn't tell us what their public statements do to the commission's ability to speak together.
- B
This tells news organizations what they should do if giving members a platform would undermine the report. It doesn't establish that giving them a platform actually does undermine it. Criticizing the media's conduct is also different from showing that the resulting report will be ineffective.
- CCorrect
A unified voice is possible only if members' opinions aren't made public before the report is completed. That requirement has already been violated: members have repeatedly aired their opinions early. So the commission cannot speak with a unified voice. Since the passage says an effective report requires that unity, the report won't be effective. Both links are now supplied.
- D
This describes what the public might have speculated about if the members had stayed silent. They didn't stay silent. We need a rule connecting their actual statements to a failure of unity, not a prediction about public curiosity under a different set of circumstances.
- E
This would establish ineffectiveness if members had already held opinions before the commission was formed. We don't know that timing. We know they expressed opinions before the report was completed, which could be well after the commission began. The condition in E hasn't been established, so its promised result doesn't follow.
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