#6 - Legislator: Your agency is responsible for regulating

[sjlsat]

Hello,

I picked answer choice C for this one but was able to eliminate A and E during my test. I was stuck between B, D, and C and eventually picked C because I thought the Regulator saying “it was impossible to attract enough qualified applicants” was equivalent to “insufficient response,” but now understand why these two terms aren’t interchangeable.

Would a good reason for eliminating this answer choice have been the fact that the “legislature’s mandate” isn’t mentioned anywhere? Are they saying the legislature’s mandate is the frozen salaries? I’m trying to think of ways I could have eliminated this answer choice and I’m now wondering if “claiming that compliance with the legislature’s mandate” should’ve been a huge giveaway since the Regulator doesn’t make any specific claims about any legislature’s mandate or other specific rule in place. Thank you!

[Robert Carroll]

sjlsat,

Regardless of the referent of "legislature's mandate", answer choice (C) does not describe anything the regulator's argument is doing. If the "mandate" is to regulate the industry, the regulator does not claim that compliance with that would be an insufficient response. If the "mandate" is to hire 500 investigators, similarly, the regulator thinks that was not feasible - possible, but only by compromising the qualifications of new hires. If the "mandate" is to examine the scandals, the regulator doesn't seem to think that would be insufficient either. If the "mandate" is the freezing of salaries, it's not that that "would have been" an insufficient response - it happened. The freezing happened. So it's not coherent to think it "would have been" anything - it happened and had certain effects. None of that is considered by the regulator to be an insufficient response.

Ultimately, if the legislature wanted something done, that could be a mandate, but no possible mandate in this situation can be described with answer choice (C).

Robert Carroll