#13 - Some people think that in every barrel of politicians

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Cannot Be True-SN. The correct answer choice is (E)

The author of this stimulus believes that a politician must be somewhat deceptive in order to be effective. One who is totally honest, the author asserts, will never be an effective politician.

The question stem requires that we find the answer choice which conflict with the assertions from the stimulus.

Answer choice (A): Since the stimulus doesn’t provide information on everyone, it is certainly possible that some people have such beliefs.

Answer choice (B): There could be some scrupulously honest politicians in the world (it’s just that they cannot, according to the author, be effective politicians).

Answer choice (C): Similiar answer choice (A) above, this is possible, because the stimulus doesn’t describe every person’s definition of a politician’s job.

Answer choice (D): The author tells us about those who aren’t deceitful (they will be ineffective politicians), but does not assert that being deceitful will guarantee effectiveness.

Answer choice (E): This is the correct answer choice. If the last sentence of the stimulus is true, then such honest politicians can never be effective.

[mshaikh]

Hello Powerscore,

I was stuck between D and E for this one and now while I understand why E is the correct answer I am not sure how to diagram the last sentence of the stimulus.

This is how I diagrammed the other sentences:
Sentence 2 :
Deceit Quality of Rottenness
Effective Politicians Rotten

Sentence 3:
Do job properly Deceitful

Sentence 4???
Scrupulously Honest about obeying rules Never an Effective Politician
OR
Never Scrupulously Honest about obeying rules Effective Politician
Can someone please clarify how to diagram the last sentence?

[Adam Tyson]

A few things about your diagram here, mshaikh. First, the first claim about deceit and rottenness should be:

If Deceit=Rottenness Effective Politicians are Rotten

The "if" portion is that deceit equals rottenness. That's not the same as deceit being sufficient for rottenness, as you diagrammed it - it's saying if that is true, then effective politicians are rotten. This could also be diagrammed as a nested conditional, like so:

Deceit=Rottenness (Effective Politician Rotten)

Now I would equate "do the job properly" with "effective", and the next sentence would be:

Effective Politician Deceitful

The conclusion is:

Scrupulously Honest Effective Politician

That looks like your first attempt at the diagram, while your second is a mistaken negation of that claim.

As it turns out, all that attention to the conditional statements in the premises was unnecessary for picking the right answer! When faced with a conditional claim, the one thing that cannot be true is that the sufficient condition happens and the necessary condition does not. Answer E has that exact problem when compared to the conclusion.

I hope that helps!

[mshaikh]

That makes complete sense! I see where my error was now and why E was obviously the correct answer. Thanks for the help!

[lunsandy]

Hi Powerscore,

I am still confused why D is incorrect. I diagramed as: job properly deceit quality of rottenness effective politicians are rotten. And D is saying some deceitful politicians /effective politicians. So isn't that the sufficient happening and the necessary not happening, thus this cannot be true?

Thanks a lot for the help!

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi Lunsandy,


I want to confirm that I am reading your post correctly. In the chain of statements that you provided, you wrote:

deceit quality of rottenness effective politicians are rotten.

Am I correct in reading that as If one is deceitful, then one will be an effective and rotten politician? If so it looks like you interpreted the third statement of the stimulus incorrectly.

The speaker stated that "[politicians] must be deceitful in order to do the job properly." There are two conditional indicators present in this statement: 'must' and 'in order to.' Read together, this tells us the idea "be deceitful" is a necessary condition for a politician to do their job properly. We should diagram this statement in the following way:

politician doing her/his job properly deceitful


Let us know if this helps

[msomorin]

Hi there, I got this question right after writing out the conditional statements and realizing that answer choice E is a mistaken negation of one the sufficient/necessary reasonings but I would love to check my work. Would someone be able to help me out here?

[Stephanie Oswalt]

Hi there, I got this question right after writing out the conditional statements and realizing that answer choice E is a mistaken negation of one the sufficient/necessary reasonings but I would love to check my work. Would someone be able to help me out here?

Hi msomorin!

Thanks for your post! I have moved your question to the thread discussing this. Please review the above explanation and discussion, and let us know if that helps! Thanks!