#16 - Environmentalist: Many people prefer to live in

[David Boyle]

Hello, In digging deeper into my weakness with assumption qs, I realize that I confuse whether it is a defender or supporter assumtion question type.

I've read through your previous responses to students regarding assumption questions and understand that an important way to distinguish the two types is if the stimulus doesn't contain a new or rogue element, then it's a defender. However, in the q16 example I considered environmental protection as the new element not previously discussed.

Do you recommend relying on the q stem to lead me? If it is a defender question, can I count on terms like "depends" "relies" versus "required" for supporter questions. Lastly, does casual language or conditional relationships in the stimulus signify a defender type?

Thanks!!!!

Hello Lina,

It's not always easy to tell a supporter from a defender at times. But I'm not sure "terms like "depends" "relies" versus "required" for supporter questions" will reliably help you at all. (Especially since "depends on" may be a synonym for "required".)
Also, I wouldn't say "casual language or conditional relationships in the stimulus signif[ies] a defender type". Often a supporter assumption, e.g., may fill in gaps between conditional statements. (E.g.: if premise is A arrow B, and conclusion is A arrow C, then the right answer choice may be B arrow C.)

As for question 16: if one wanted to call it a defender, one might point to the negative feeling of the correct answer choice, i.e., "A factor harmful to some older local industries in a region need not discourage other businesses from relocating to that region". "need not" has a negative charge, which often connotes a defender. (I.e., saying that a potential attack on the argument is not existent.) Yes, "government protection" may be a new term, but there may be other new terms in that sentence as well, so new terms don't always connote a supporter. Maybe the argument makes sense as is, so that all you need is a defender to fend off possible hypothetical attacks on the conclusion.

On a broader level, it may not always be super important (especially if you're taking a real test!) to differentiate supporters from defenders. You just want the assumption that works to answer the question, no matter what category it happens to fall into.

Hope this helps,
David

[jonwg5121]

Can someone please explain how to best approach #16? I may have just focused on the conclusion which led me to thinking (B) was the right answer choice. I was unable to see how businesses had to deal with the argument at hand. Thanks!

[David Boyle]

Can someone please explain how to best approach #16? I may have just focused on the conclusion which led me to thinking (B) was the right answer choice. I was unable to see how businesses had to deal with the argument at hand. Thanks!

Hello jonwg5121,

Government environmental protection, says the stimulus, can help economies even if damaging older industries. This may seem counterintuitive (damaging industry usually hurts economies), so we have to look for another way that economies are helped. One is apparent in the first part of the stimulus, where it says businesses are moving into beautiful, populated regions. But there's the lingering taste of "damaging older industries"...could that cripple the businesses moving in? Not if answer E is chosen, since that answer rules out too much of a damaging effect on newer businesses.
Answer B is not necessarily true (where's the proof?); and if it were, or weren't, it wouldn't matter either way, since the stimulus already assumes government environmental rules could harm local industry.

Hope this helps,
David

[flowskiferda]

I'm having trouble seeing how the negation of E would crucially harm the argument. Discourage doesn't necessarily mean stop altogether--perhaps it makes businesses more hesitant to come, but some still come. It seems like a pretty big assumption that discouraging is the same as preventing altogether.

[Adam Tyson]

While "discourage" is not the same as "prevent," flowskiferda, think about the relationship between the premise and the conclusion. The author thinks that since natural beauty creates conditions that can encourage economic growth, mandating protection of that beauty should encourage that same growth. Answer E, when negated, indicates that mandating that protection might have an opposite effect. Such a mandate will discourage, rather than encourage, growth.

While the negation of answer E doesn't absolutely prove that a mandate must have the opposite effect on the overall economy, it essentially invalidates the relationship the author posits between that mandate and the purported outcome. The negation of answer E means that the premise no longer supports the conclusion. It's not that the conclusion must be false; it's that the evidence no longer supports that conclusion. The argument (by which I mean the relationship between the premises and the conclusion) is destroyed.

Here's an analogy I like to use in cases like this:

It rained last night, so it's going to be a bad day today.

I must have assumed that the rain indicates that a bad day will follow. Negating that, what if rain does not indicate a bad day will follow? My argument falls apart. My evidence - the rain last night - no longer has any bearing on my conclusion. There is no longer a reason to believe it will be a bad day. But it still could be a bad day! My negation didn't prove that it wouldn't be a bad day; it only proved that the evidence didn't support that conclusion. That's the effect you want to see from the negation of the correct answer. Not necessarily disproving the conclusion, but destroying the logical force of the argument by showing that the premises do not support the conclusion.

[ashpine17]

What if most businesses were driven out? Would that weaken the argument?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

The old business have to be driven out AND the new businesses can't come, ashpine, in order for that fact to weaken. The idea here in the stimulus is that the new businesses can offset losses from the harm done to the older local businesses. So it's not enough for a weaken just to say that the old businesses are driven out. The argument already describes harm to those businesses. We'd need something that would address the new businesses moving in as well.

Hope that helps!