#21 - Whenever a major political scandal erupts before an

[GLMDYP]

Hi Powerscore!
I simply don't understand what the stimulus is talking about. Can you please explain why (E) is the appropriate choice?
Thanks!

[David Boyle]

Hi Powerscore!
I simply don't understand what the stimulus is talking about. Can you please explain why (E) is the appropriate choice?
Thanks!

Hello,

The stimulus is saying that if a scandal is blamed on a particular political party (rather than on all the parties, say), voters tend to punish that party. (Otherwise, incumbents tend to do pretty well.) (E) follows that logic.

David

[po1016]

For 47, how are A and E diagrammed?

[Ron Gore]

Hi, Po!

In this question, if you were to diagram out the answer choices, you could diagram (A) and (E) like I did below. However, I would consider whether diagramming these answer choices is truly efficient or even necessary.

The stimulus is focused on two scenarios: 1) all parties are blamed equally; and, (2) only one party is blamed. Nothing in the stimulus focuses on what occurs when an incumbent candidate, rather than the party, is responsible for a scandal. So answer choice (A), which presents the responsibility of individual incumbent candidates, rather than parties, as the compound sufficient condition, is totally unconnected to the stimulus. Be cautious about diagramming each answer choice without narrowing down the possibilities first. If you have any thought of completing the section within the allotted, diagramming answer choices should be the exception, rather than the rule.

That being said, the diagrams you requested are:

Sufficient Necessary

(A):

Incumbent(a) responsible for MPS1

AND consequences same for both Incumbents(a&b)

Incumbent(b) responsible for MPS2

(E):
MPS resp of party more than individual party penalized when possible

Thanks!

Ron

[Jkjones3789]

If the voter's responses are guided by a principle, which one of the following principles would best account for the contrast in reactions described above.

What kind of question stem is this ? I thought it was Evaluate the Argument - PR but I/m not sure.

[Dave Killoran]

Hi JK,

This is a Resolve-PR question. "...best account for..." is the same as explain, and since you are trying to explain the "contrast in reactions," you have a Resolve question. Then, when you add in the "principle" element mentioned int he question stem, you get Resolve-PR.

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[taylorballou]

Hello,

Initially I was going to choose E, but then second guessed myself and chose D. I think the last sentence in answer choice E confused me because I didn't think the stimulus showed that degree of certainty (e.g. the party responsible MUST be penalized). After that I think I started getting even more confused when I actually chose D. I believe I made the error of assuming the incumbents (the individuals who make up the parties) were had the same characteristics as the parties themselves. I then interpreted the second half of answer choice D to mean that the chance an incumbent would return to office depended upon whether their opponent was in their same party or belonged to a party responsible for a scandal.

Although I think I know where I went wrong, could you please confirm why answer choice D was wrong?

Thanks,

Taylor

[Eric Ockert]

Hi Taylor

Remember, as this is a Resolve the Paradox problem, your goal is to find an answer that, if true, might explain the situation in the stimulus. So here, we are looking for a potential explanation why incumbents don't get punished when blame is spread to all parties, but they do get punished when blame is placed solely on their party.

Answer choice (D) does not really explain this situation. If (D) is true, why aren't the incumbents in the first case punished? It doesn't seem to matter who their challenger is, they are "virtually all" being returned to office.

With answer choice (E), we definitely have the voters blaming either all parties in the first instance, or only one party in the second. But they are definitely blaming parties. So (E) is saying that when you blame a party for a scandal, you penalize the party when possible. That would allow for reelecting incumbents in the first case, because you can't really penalize any one party if they are all to blame. It would also support penalizing the incumbents from the offending party in the second case, because here it is possible to penalize the party.

Finally, the "must" language does not affect answer (E) as this is a Resolve the Paradox question, which falls into the Help Family of Logical Reasoning questions. All we need to find is an answer that could explain the voters' behavior in both situations. Strong wording doesn't really work against the answer, because we don't need to prove anything stated in that answer choice, just determine whether it helps explain the contrast in reactions.

Hope that helps!

[jwooon]

Hello,

I am struggling with the wording of this question. From what I understand, the first condition in the question states that:
all parties are blamed all incumbents of all parties return to office (ie. not punished)
one party is blamed incumbents of that party will lose (ie. punished)

From either of those conditions, I cannot see a situation where individual incumbents are seen as punished instead of the party they belong to. Doesn't the stimulus only mention blaming the parties, and the number of parties blamed results in whether or not incumbents should or should not be punished.

I initially chose (D) and I sort of understand why D is wrong (would like some clarification on this too, if possible), but I cannot understand answer choice (E) because of the first part of the answer choice.

Please help!

[Dana D]

Hey Jwoon,

The stimulus is comparing two separate scenarios. In the first, there is a major scandal and all parties are to blame. In the second, one political party is the problem, and voters are more likely to replace that party with another party. Why would they do this? Why do they absolve the incumbent individuals and reelect them when all parties are involved, but replace with a different party if just one party is involved?

Answer choice (E) explains this by saying that whenever possible, if it's the party that is at fault, voters are going to try and penalize that party. So, if one party is caught in a scandal then voters will oust all incumbents from that party, but if all parties are involved then there is no way to penalize all parties - all candidates belong to some party, so there is no way to punish the parties themselves because there is no way to replace incumbents with candidates from 'other' parties - there are no other parties, everyone messed up!

Hope that helps!