#22 - Editorialist: News media rarely cover local politics

[olafimihan.k]

Hello!

I thought answer choice B would be correct because if the local politics weren't conducted secretively it would somehow encourage resident participation (reversing what happened in the stimulus).

Can someone explain why this is wrong?

Thanks in advance!

[Eric Ockert]

Hi there!

Thanks for the question. Answer choice (B) may be tempting if you are to read this as a Strengthen question, where you use the answer to support something in the stimulus. However, the question stem here is looking for an answer that is supported by the stimulus. So this means we are now looking for what we can more or less prove from the stimulus.

Answer choice (B) is worded very strongly. We don't really know if the business should be conducted less secretively. There may be many reasons, not mentioned in the stimulus, that could support conducting political business secretively. Contrast that very strong language in (B) with the "at least one" language in answer choice (D). That very soft wording is far easier to prove and, in this case, is proven by the stimulus.

Don't forget to keep an eye on not just what an answer says, but how it says it. In the case of Must Be True questions especially, this can greatly affect the provability of the answer choice.

Hope that helps!

[James Finch]

Hi Olaf,

The issue with (B) is that we have two factors that begin our logical chain:

News Media Rarely Cover Local Politics Thoroughly (NMRCLPT)

and

Local Political Business is Usually Conducted Secretively (LPBUCS)

both Isolate Local Politicians (ILP)

which then leads to

Reducing The Chance That Any Particular Act of Resident Participation Will Elicit a Positive Official Response (RCRPEPR)

which finally serves to

Discourage Resident Participation in Local Politics (DRPLP)

So we end up with two logical strings:

NMRCLPT ILP RCRPEPR DRPLP

and

LPBUCS ILP RCRPEPR DRPLP

(B) would eliminate the second string, and claim that DRPLP would be eliminated. But we would still have that first string, as NMRCLPT DRPLP would still exist. (D) works by claiming that DRPLP would be reduced, not necessarily eliminated, if we eliminated NMRCLPT, thus correctly allow for the possibility that
LPBUCS DRPLP could still occur.

Hope this clarifies the question!

[Crayola99]

I understand how answer choice A should be adjusted for “more likely” instead of just likely, however I wanted to check if it could also be eliminated from the perspective of a mistaken reversal?

The stimulus says: isolate local politicians from their electorates --> reduces chance that any particular act of resident participation will elicit a positive official response

Would it be correct to say: Not reducing/increasing the chance that any particular act of resident participation will elicit a positive official response --> make local politicians less isolated from their electorates.

Answer Choice A: If those politicians were less isolated from the electorate --> particular acts of resident participation would be likely to elicit a positive response from local politicians

Thanks!

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Crayola,

The problem with your read is that once you throw in terms like "likely" and "tends to" you aren't looking at pure conditional relationships anymore. It's closer to casual reasoning with the "has the effect" language.

The big issue with answer choice (A), as you note, is the move from comparative likelihood in the stimulus to absolute likelihood in the answer choice. We can't make that jump. For example, it is more likely that I am attacked by a shark if I am in the ocean than if I'm in my house. However, that doesn't make it likely that I'll be attacked by a shark in either location. Similarly, we have no idea how likely it is that the residents would get a positive response.

Hope that helps!
Rachael

[teddykim100]

Hello,

just want to check the language here - does the phrase "tends to" indicate causation?

I was under the impression it expressed a correlation.

"These factors each tend to isolate local politicians from their electorates."

[Luke Haqq]

Hi teddykim100!

Yes, the words "tends to" in this context seem to indicate causation. For correlation, look for words like "associated with," such as "These factors tend to be associated with XYZ."

[lsatstudent99966]

Hi there,

If (E) states: "If resident participation were not discouraged, then politicians could not have been isolated" instead of "If resident participation were not discouraged, then politicians will not be isolated," would (E) be correct?

Thank you in advance!

[Adam Tyson]

The biggest problem with answer E as it is currently written is that it reverses the causal relationship, lsatstudent99966. It's isolation that causes discouragement, not the other way around.

I think what you're suggesting is the idea of the effect being absent indicating that the cause must be absent, and that is generally an idea that is supported by a causal relationship. If isolation discourages resident participation, then it supports the idea that if residents are not discouraged, politicians were not isolated. We don't often see that kind of answer to this type of question, but it could happen. I don't think such an answer would be written with the level of certainty that you suggested, though. Perhaps a better answer might have said:

"If, in a certain locality, residents participated fully in local politics and did not feel discouraged to do so, it is likely that politicians in that locality were not isolated from the electorate."

Again, though, we almost never see answers like that. Look instead for an answer that either shows a cause happening and an effect of that cause happening, or one that suggests that removing or reducing a cause might remove or reduce an effect.

[lsatstudent99966]

The biggest problem with answer E as it is currently written is that it reverses the causal relationship, lsatstudent99966. It's isolation that causes discouragement, not the other way around.

I think what you're suggesting is the idea of the effect being absent indicating that the cause must be absent, and that is generally an idea that is supported by a causal relationship. If isolation discourages resident participation, then it supports the idea that if residents are not discouraged, politicians were not isolated. We don't often see that kind of answer to this type of question, but it could happen. I don't think such an answer would be written with the level of certainty that you suggested, though. Perhaps a better answer might have said:

"If, in a certain locality, residents participated fully in local politics and did not feel discouraged to do so, it is likely that politicians in that locality were not isolated from the electorate."

Again, though, we almost never see answers like that. Look instead for an answer that either shows a cause happening and an effect of that cause happening, or one that suggests that removing or reducing a cause might remove or reduce an effect.

Hi Adam,

Thank you so much!

I think the way you phrase it ("If, in a certain locality, residents participated fully in local politics and did not feel discouraged to do so, it is likely that politicians in that locality were not isolated from the electorate.") avoids the problem that the cause may not be a "sufficient cause," right?