#5 - Senator Strongwood reported that, contrary to a study

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Method of Reasoning. The correct answer choice is (B)

Senator Strongwood believes that he has defeated the administration's tax cut plan. He asserts that, given common sense and his own party's study, a tax cut will lead to a loss in revenue and an increase in the deficit. That study is in direct contradiction to the administration's own study, and you should take note of that. The Senator believes that he will be victorious because no Senator would vote to raise the deficit.

The flaw in the Senator's reasoning, which you should recognize, is that he makes unwarranted assumptions. It is entirely possible that other Senators will not agree with Strongwood about what is "common sense," and that many Senators not in Strongwood's party will doubt the validity of his quite possibly partisan "study." In fact, it is very probable that the Senator is quite mistaken, because a great many Senators may find the administration's study more believable.

Answer choice (A) The Senator states that decreasing the tax would increase the deficit, and this choice is a mistaken negation of his statement, and incorrect. You should not assume that since the Senator is against decreasing the tax, he is for increasing it.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice. The Senator makes the unwarranted assumption that the Senate will generally believe his report rather than the administration's report.

Answer choice (C) The senator never expressly states that his opponents lack common sense, even though he does imply as much. Because the Senator does not "expressly" state any such thing, this choice is incorrect. Furthermore, the point of his reference was not exclusively name-calling, so it is difficult to justify a belief that his argument was mainly a character attack.

Answer choice (D) Since the stimulus never discussed the issue of popularity, this choice is irrelevant and incorrect.

Answer choice (E) The Senator assumes that people will believe his study, not that his study is actually correct, so this choice is wrong. Furthermore, if you knew that the Senator made an unwarranted assumption but were confused between answer choices (B) and (E), you could actually have applied the assumption negation technique. If the senator assumes the negation of answer choice (B), his argument will be incorrect. If he assumes the negation of answer choice (E), it is still possible that the Senators will believe his study, and vote accordingly. That makes answer choice (B) correct. Normally you would only use the negation test on an assumption question, but you are allowed to be creative with the techniques.

[akanshalsat]

Hello! I'm confused as to how E is incorrect, If he believes that people will believe his study, then he most likely agrees that his study was correct and carried out better than the administration, as is seen when he says "contrary to a study cited... a THOROUGH study by HIS OWN PARTY"

[Dave Killoran]

Hello! I'm confused as to how E is incorrect, If he believes that people will believe his study, then he most likely agrees that his study was correct and carried out better than the administration, as is seen when he says "contrary to a study cited... a THOROUGH study by HIS OWN PARTY"

Hi A,

I think you may be missing the point of (E), which is about objectivity. There's a difference between people believing something vs Strongwood himself believing that the study itself is "more objective." For example, I could conduct a thorough study on just about any topic and conclude whatever I want, but that doesn't mean that it was objective. In fact, companies do this all the time—they commission studies that intend to show what they want it to show, and they make them "thorough." Big Tobacco did this and had studies showing smoking didn't cause cancer, and Big Pharma produced a study showing opiates weren't addictive. Both, obviously, were found later to be false.

It's a tricky point, but a good example of how you have to analyze what each word is saying

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

[Pragmatism]

Hello! I'm confused as to how E is incorrect, If he believes that people will believe his study, then he most likely agrees that his study was correct and carried out better than the administration, as is seen when he says "contrary to a study cited... a THOROUGH study by HIS OWN PARTY"

Hi A,

I think you may be missing the point of (E), which is about objectivity. There's a difference between people believing something vs Strongwood himself believing that the study itself is "more objective." For example, I could conduct a thorough study on just about any topic and conclude whatever I want, but that doesn't mean that it was objective. In fact, companies do this all the time—they commission studies that intend to show what they want it to show, and they make them "thorough." Big Tobacco did this and had studies showing smoking didn't cause cancer, and Big Pharma produced a study showing opiates weren't addictive. Both, obviously, were found later to be false.

It's a tricky point, but a good example of how you have to analyze what each word is saying

Please let me know if that helps. Thanks!

Before I elaborate on Akanshalsat's point, I would like to say I boiled it down between B and E. I can see how B was correct, because the author states, "he could not imagine...increase the deficit," which is inline with what answer B states with, "will believe his report instead of the administration." However, what stuck out about answer choice E was the phrase "more objective." Now, I can understand that the Senators party could have commissioned a report that intended to show its desired result, but my issue was with the fact that it was "more objective." The way I was perceiving "more objective" was in a more holistic or comprehensive sense. The stimulus states, "Everyone knows that when you cut taxes you lose revenue." There are several indicators in that sentence that corroborate with such an approach. But, I guess, since the word "objective" is characterized as an adjective in that answer choice, which would be defined as, "(of a person or their judgement) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts," it would be wrong from either side to claim objectivity as an empirical high-ground, is that why it is wrong because it lacked to adhere to that definition?

[James Finch]

Hi Pragmatism,

The key to this Method-AP question is recognizing the conclusion and how the stimulus arrives at it. The senator concludes that the capital gains reduction bill is dead, a conclusion premised on both his belief that senators won't vote for a bill that increases the deficit and that his party's report will convince senators that the this bill will increase the deficit. However, there is another study that claims the bill will not increase the deficit. The senator doesn't provide any evidence for why other senators will believe his party's report over the other study, he just assumes that they will.

Answer choice (B) correctly identifies this assumption as an unstated premise of the senator's argument, while answer choice (E) introduces a new element, objectivity, that does not affect other premises or the conclusion. It is irrelevant which study is more objective, only which study the senators will use to base their vote on. We don't know what criteria they will use for that, so the objectivity of the studies does not matter to the argument, only that they choose to believe the conclusions of Strongwood's party's study over that of the administration's study.

Hope this clears things up!

[cutiepie]

I am completely lost. Where in the stimulus does it give off that Senator Strongwood believes that he has defeated the administration's tax cut plan? Also how do we know that that study is in direct contradiction to the administration's own study? Nothing in the stimulus lead me to even consider choosing answer choice B.

[Jeremy Press]

Hi cutiepie,

Senator Strongwood's belief that he has defeated the tax cut plan (in other words, that Strongwood has enough votes on his side to kill the plan) comes directly from his conclusion. His conclusion is that "the administration's plan for reducing the capital gains tax was now dead."

The stimulus says in the first line that the "thorough study by his own party" is "contrary to a study cited by the administration." Thus the Senator's party's study is in contradiction to (i.e., contrary to) the administration's study.

The premise for Strongwood's conclusion is that "he could not imagine any senator voting to increase the deficit." Since Strongwood's party's study says the administration's tax plan would increase the deficit, the Senator must be assuming that those senators accept his party's study (they accept that voting for the tax plan will increase the deficit). That's where the backup for answer choice B is coming from.

I hope this helps!