PrepTest 149, Section 1, Question 12
Legislator: The recently passed highway bill is clearly(28 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the legislator’s(12 more words not shown)
- Agives no reason(19 more words not shown)
- Bfocuses on the(10 more words not shown)
- Cinfers that the(10 more words not shown)
- Dtakes for granted(14 more words not shown)
- Ebases its conclusion(14 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
What if voters are angry about something else?
What we’re looking for
Maybe the majority party started an unpopular war or raised taxes. Either could explain the predicted losses without telling us whether voters dislike the highway bill. Supporting that bill and being expected to lose seats doesn't establish that the bill is the reason. For the flaw, I'd look for this missing connection between the party's electoral trouble and voters' opinion of this particular legislation.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
Imagine the party never supported the highway bill. Would the polls still predict the same losses? If the losses reflect anger over a war or taxes, they might. The argument gives us no reason to think removing support for the highway bill would change the prediction, so it hasn't shown that the election forecast reveals the bill's unpopularity.
- B
A bill's merits and its popularity are different questions. This conclusion concerns popularity. The bill could be excellent and unpopular, or terrible and popular. Leaving its merits aside isn't the error; failing to establish what voters think of this bill is.
- C
The election prediction doesn't already assume the highway bill is unpopular. It could be based on voters' dissatisfaction with the party for many other reasons. The argument tries to infer the bill's unpopularity from that prediction; it doesn't merely restate the conclusion as its own evidence.
- D
We aren't told the legislator wants the bill to be unpopular. The stated support is a poll prediction, not a wish. We can criticize the link between that prediction and the conclusion without inventing a personal motive for the speaker.
- E
Voters don't need expertise in highway policy for their opinions to determine whether a bill is popular with them. Expertise might matter if the argument used their opinions to establish that the bill was good policy. Here we need evidence of their preferences, and the election forecast doesn't isolate those preferences about this bill.
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