#14 - The book To Save the Earth is so persuasive that no

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption. The correct answer choice is (D)

The conclusion in this Assumption question is that the Earth Association can claim credit for converting at least 2000 people in the previous month to the environmentalist cause. This conclusion is based on the fact that member of the Earth Association gave away 2000 copies of the book To Save the Earth, a book so persuasive that anyone who reads it will be persuaded to follow its environmentalist message. The connection presumed by the author is that not only did everyone who received the book read it, but no one who was given the book was already committed to the environmentalist cause (as that would mean they could not convert).

Answer choice (A): The argument is only about what The Earth Association did, so the actions of other groups are irrelevant.

Answer choice (B): Whether the people who received copies of the book would have been willing to pay for it is not a necessary piece of the argument.

Answer choice (C): The material on which the book was printed is not important for the author’s argument.

Answer choice (D): This is the correct answer choice. This Defender answer rules out the possibility that some of the people to whom the book was given were already committed to the environmentalist cause, as a prior commitment would mean that they could not be converted by the book.

Answer choice (E): We cannot know what environmental program The Earth Association advocates. The argument is only about being converted to the environmentalist cause.

[rameday]

Hello,

I understand why D is correct but why is A wrong?

If we find out that some other organization did give away pamphlets at the same time the EA was doesn't that weaken the idea that the EA can claim all that credit for the conversion to the environmental cause? That is how i perceived it using the negation technique?

[Steve Stein]

Hi,

The idea with that one is that the organization gave away 2000 books, so they can take credit for 2000 converts to the cause. Does this require the assumption that no one else was giving away books? Even if some other groups were giving away books, that would not refute the argument presented--that the Earth Association can take credit for 2000 converts based on the 2000 books that the organization gave away.

Does that make sense? Please let me know whether this is clear--thanks!

Steve

[rameday]

Makes sense.

[Steve Stein]

Hi,

Thanks for your message--I appreciate your response, and I'm glad that was helpful!

Steve

[lathlee]

Hi.

I had C) d) e) as contenders and chose E) as the correct answer but I am wrong: D) is correct. I don't get it.

cuz using the negation technique:

E) every recipient of to save the earth will NOT embrace the environmental program advocated by the earth association is stronger hurtful than D) None of those who received to save the earth from a member of the earth association were NOT already committed to the environmentalist cause when they received this book.

[Emily Haney-Caron]

Hi lathlee,

The problem with E is that we don't actually know what it is talking about; it is discussing the environmental program advocated by the Earth Association, rather than the more general environmentalist cause in the stimulus. It is possible those are the same thing, but also possible they aren't, we just don't know. As a result, E doesn't provide strong support, and doesn't quite work even using the assumption negation technique. D, on the other hand, provides strong support, and doesn't bring in any extraneous terms. E doesn't really make sense as an assumption, D survives the assumption negation technique, so D is the winner.

Hope that helps!

[hassan66]

Hi, I chose D over E but for a different reason. I missed the conflation of "environmental program" with "environmental cause." But even if you assume the two are the same, E says that "every recipient" will embrace X. But just because they receive the books doesn't necessarily mean that they read the book. Whereas with D, even if you didn't read the book, you were already a convert so that's one less person they can claim to have "converted." Does this logic still work?

[Adam Tyson]

Not exactly, hassan66, because an assumption answer doesn't have to include all the assumptions made by the author, but just one of them. This author assumed a lot of info - that they gave it to 2000 different people, that none of them were already environmentalists, and that they all read it within that first month. Answer E's problem isn't that it fails to deal with whether they read it or not, because it doesn't need to cover all the assumptions. After all, correct answer D also neglects to mention that. Rather, the problem is that the author doesn't have to assume that the recipients will embrace any one particular program of environmentalism. He says they will all convert to the environmentalist cause, or heed the environmentalist message, whatever that is. Maybe they will read the book, embrace environmentalism, and then reject the Earth Association's program and join the Sierra Club or Greenpeace instead.

Your analysis of D is good! If any of the recipients were already environmentalists, then they don't convert, and EA doesn't get credit for converting them. Well done there!

[haganskl]

Hello. I have another question about E. I successfully eliminated it but I have to admit, it made me pause. Also, I didn’t eliminate it for the reason mentioned above in your explanation. I didnt catch the shift from cause to “program”.

I negated E and decided that it was inconsistent with a premise, which we must accept as true. Thats why I eliminated it.

My question is this, for answer choice E, if we replace the word program with cause, would that then make it a SUFFICIENT assumption??

I mean the first sentence almost sounds like a rule.
—The book is so persuasive that anyone who reads it will not fail to heed its message.—

TIA