#23 - Political candidates’ speeches are loaded with promise

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Flaw in the Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (D).

A fairly straightforward Source Argument occurs in this stimulus, which means that the author attacked some characteristic of their opponent rather than focusing on what they said or did. As with many such arguments, the author has focused on the supposed motives of the people making promises, presuming without warrant that if they made those promises with selfish motives that they would not then keep their promises. This overlooks the possibility that even a promise made for a selfish reason might still be kept by the person who made it.

Incidentally, this question is a good example of how the difficulty of questions does not simply rise from easy to hard over the course of a section of LR. Often, fairly easy questions can be found among the last 10 questions in a section, especially near the very end like this. That's why it is so important not to allow yourself to get bogged down on harder questions earlier in the section. You definitely do not want to run out of time before reaching this one!

Answer choice (A): This answer is a bit of a shell game compared to what we are looking for. The author makes no presumptions about unselfish promises, but only about ones made for selfish reasons.

Answer choice (B): Although this answer is very attractive and close to our prephrase, "never kept" is too strong in this case, as the author only argued that such promises are unreliable. That leaves room for the possibility that they are sometimes kept, even if one should not rely on that happening.

Answer choice (C): The argument is not in any way causal, and so this answer is just a distraction.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. This answer matches what we are looking for, because the author did overlook the possibility that a promise made with ulterior motives still might be reliable.

Answer choice (E): "Worthy of office" is not an issue in this argument and has nothing to do with whether certain promises may or may not be reliable.

[Applesaid]

Hello!

Again this is my weakness in flawed reasoning.

I reasoned the stimulus like this: because politicians' purpose in giving these speeches is to get themselves elected, these speeches are selfishly motivated and the promises in them are unreliable.

So I thought "ok, just because the motivation is selfish doesn't mean that speeches they made have to be unreliable." So the correct answer choice D looks right and my prephrase led me to it correctly this time. But wait a minute, I started to debate between D/E when I continued to look at the remaining answer choices. And why not E?

[David Boyle]

Hello!

Again this is my weakness in flawed reasoning.

I reasoned the stimulus like this: because politicians' purpose in giving these speeches is to get themselves elected, these speeches are selfishly motivated and the promises in them are unreliable.

So I thought "ok, just because the motivation is selfish doesn't mean that speeches they made have to be unreliable." So the correct answer choice D looks right and my prephrase led me to it correctly this time. But wait a minute, I started to debate between D/E when I continued to look at the remaining answer choices. And why not E?

Hello,

"Worthiness" is not an issue here, so E doesn't work.

David

[stevendoering]

For this question, I think answer choices A, C, and D can be eliminated pretty quickly. From there, we turn our attention to answer choice B, which although sounds like a match, is really a trap; the stimulus refers to promises being UNRELIABLE (ie don't count on them). Contrast this with B, which says the promises are never kept, which does not match the stated beliefs of the author, although they do not necessarily conflict

[sxzhao]

I must be overcomplicating things here, but please help me convince myself otherwise. Here's my understanding of the stimulus:

P1: Politicians' promises are for the purpose of being elect, in other words, self-motivated
C: Their promises are unreliable

I find choice (D) problematic, becasue it says: policians' promises are not necessarily unreliable, i.e., can be reliable, even if they have the motive to make unreliable promises. But nowhere in the stimulus do we learn "politicians are motivated to make unreliable promises"? To me " motivated to getting elected" is a completely different thing from "motivated to make unreliable promises"

I chose (B) because it points out the issue that "self-motivated promises aren't necessarily unreliable." I think it's fair to understand the word "unreliable" as "not being kept." Although "never' is a strong word, I think it works given my understanding of the argument

[Dana D]

Hey Sxzhao,

The argument's conclusion is that political candidates promises are unreliable, and the justification for that is because candidates are selfishly motivated. The author's flaw, therefore, is the assumption that having ulterior motives means one's promises are unreliable.

Answer choice (D) correctly links these ideas - you are correct that we are not told politications are motivated to make unreliable promises, and that is exactly what the author's flaw is. Political candidates are selfishly motivated, sure, but the author assumes that means the candidates will not keep their promises, when that may or may not be true. The author doesn't say that these promises are never kept, as answer choice (B) describes, only that the promises are not reliable. In fact, answer choice (B) would be flat out incorrect, because there is no evidence at all that the author here assumes these types of promises are never kept. Answers (B) And (D) seem similar, but (D) better describes the author's flaw.

hope that helps!

[sxzhao]

Hey Sxzhao,

The argument's conclusion is that political candidates promises are unreliable, and the justification for that is because candidates are selfishly motivated. The author's flaw, therefore, is the assumption that having ulterior motives means one's promises are unreliable.

Answer choice (D) correctly links these ideas - you are correct that we are not told politications are motivated to make unreliable promises, and that is exactly what the author's flaw is. Political candidates are selfishly motivated, sure, but the author assumes that means the candidates will not keep their promises, when that may or may not be true. The author doesn't say that these promises are never kept, as answer choice (B) describes, only that the promises are not reliable. In fact, answer choice (B) would be flat out incorrect, because there is no evidence at all that the author here assumes these types of promises are never kept. Answers (B) And (D) seem similar, but (D) better describes the author's flaw.

hope that helps!

Super helpful! thank you