PrepTest 156, Section 2, Question 18
Dapolito: The city council recently passed a rent-control(48 more words not shown)
Dapolito's conclusion follows logically if(7 more words not shown)
- AThe recent study(9 more words not shown)
- BRent control is(10 more words not shown)
- CThe members of(16 more words not shown)
- DSome members of(14 more words not shown)
- EThe city council(8 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Maybe the council meant well and got the consequences wrong.
Dapolito points to a study saying rent control raises prices and reduces rental quality and availability. For this question, accept that account as the stated evidence. Does it establish what the council wanted when it passed the ordinance? Not yet. A policy can work against its supporters' objective if they misunderstand how it will work.
What we’re looking for
The conclusion is specifically that preserving quality and availability was not the council's objective. To make that inference work, I'd look for evidence that the supporters knew and accepted the consequences Dapolito describes. That would block the explanation that they were trying to preserve rentals but mistakenly expected this policy to help.
Working the answers
- A
Impartial investigators might make the study more credible, but they don't tell us what the council believed or intended. Even a perfectly accurate study could describe consequences the council failed to anticipate. The missing connection concerns the council's understanding, not the investigators' neutrality.
- B
Whether rent control is an appropriate subject for the council is a question about what the council should consider. Dapolito's conclusion concerns its objective in passing this ordinance. Acting outside one's proper role doesn't establish that particular objective.
- CCorrect
The members who voted for rent control agree that it has the consequences the study describes. They therefore accept that their chosen policy reduces rental quality and availability. Within the argument, this supplies the missing link between choosing the policy and concluding that preserving those features wasn't the objective guiding that choice.
Our original objection was that they might have expected the opposite result. C closes that route: these supporters accept the adverse effect, rather than mistakenly believing the policy preserves quality and availability. We don't need to add a claim that they are corrupt or that harming renters is itself their goal.
- D
A personal benefit could give some members a reason to support the ordinance, but it doesn't rule out a goal of preserving rentals. They could expect both personal profit and an improvement in the rental market. Also, the choice describes only some members. It doesn't establish the council's objective in the way needed for the conclusion.
- E
'Sometimes' doesn't tell us how the council acted on this occasion. And irrationally choosing a policy can fit our original objection: the council might have a preservation goal but choose a bad way to pursue it. That doesn't prove the absence of the goal.
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