#12 - The chairperson should not have released the Election

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, 75Rambert,

Good question!

The issue here is with translating what the stimulus and answer choice says in order to achieve consistency with our conditions.

Let's describe what is said in the stimulus and answer choices in an effort to have them sync up with each other:

• Dude shouldn't have released the report = "not allowed to release report"
  
  Would have been permissible to release report = "allowed to release report"

Notice here that we have described what is said in both places in a way that is both accurate and allows us to sync up analogous ideas. In fact, the two conditions are the negations of each other. Combining this information with the rest of the information, we get the following:

• Stimulus:
  Conclusion: Did not consult Not allowed to release report (C ARR)
  
  Answer Choice (A):
  ARR C

Answer choice (A) is the contrapositive of the desired conclusion and thus works.

Does this help?

[75rambert]

Yes, thank you! I think my initial problem was in the verbiage used with “permissible” but syncing the language in the answer choices helps to create a clearer picture!

Thank you!

[danimcca]

Hello in this Justify question ... I was a little confused between A and D and ended up going with D because I didn't like that consent randomly appeared in A. Could you please explain to me why D is wrong and what the whole had they been consulted thing plays into in because it confused me and why A is right. Thank you so much?

Hello Jkjones3789,

The word "consent" is not a problem in answer choice A, since it is more or less a synonym of "agree" or "approve" or such.
Anyway, question 12 does appear to be a Justify question, so you want something that is sufficient to make stuff happen. --This question is pretty tough because of the wording. Answer choice D is very tempting, since it does talk about "be[ing] consulted", and the stimulus discusses consultation. In fact, you can diagram the logic of the stimulus, from what the stimulus seems to say, that

release consultation.

That being the case, answer choice D actually has a weakness, that is, it talks about agreement with releasing the report. But the stimulus says only that consultation is needed, not actual agreement. So answer choice A comes closer to being right. Answer A has the confusing thing about "most other members...", but maybe that is not the important part. The important part may be "consent", since to be able to consent, they must have been consulted, and that fits with the stimulus, requiring consultation for release.

Hope this helps,
David

David, this may have been asked and answered but I am still having trouble overcoming the fact that "the chairperson did not consult any other members of the commission about releasing the report before having it released" is corresponding to the fact that a) "...only if most other members of the commission had first given their consent" is not the same if not less valid than d)"..."only if each of the commission's members would have agreed to its being released had they been consulted."
given their consent ---> agreed had they been consulted.
Is consent saying yes? And Agreeing saying yes?

Thanks,
Danielle

[Jeremy Press]

Hi Danielle,

The primary problem with answer choice D is that, for the rule it's stating to fully justify the reasoning in the stimulus, we would need to know definitively what would have happened "had the commission's members been consulted." Would each of them have agreed to the release if they had been consulted? We don't know, but if so, the conclusion would be wrong, because the chairperson would have been justified in releasing it (under the rule answer choice D states). Would at least one of the members have disagreed with the release if they had been consulted? We don't know, but if so, the conclusion would be justified. Since we don't know what would've happened "had the commission's members been consulted," answer choice D's effect on the reasoning in the stimulus is uncertain.

Answer choice A does not contain that uncertainty. We know for sure from the stimulus that the members were not consulted by the chairperson. And a person cannot give their consent to something if they have not been consulted about it. (As a side note, "giving consent" is an affirmative act that requires first knowing what one is consenting to, and then indicating consent to that thing.) Thus, we know that the members in the stimulus have not given their consent to the chairperson to release the report. Since that is the case, answer choice A justifies the conclusion.

Does that make sense? Hopefully, and hope this helps!

Jeremy

[AArbo031]

I'm still struggling to grasp why answer choice A is the correct choice.
Why would it have been permissible to release the Election Commission's report if MOST members gave their consent? Most of the members doesn't encompass all of the members. So, what about the members that may not have given their consent? How could releasing the results still be considered permissible if not all members are accounted for?

[Adam Tyson]

You may be looking at this question the wrong way, AArbo031. We are not trying to prove that answer A is correct. That would be our goal if this was a Must Be True question, and you would be correct that answer A doesn't have to be true. But this question is a Justify the Conclusion (aka Sufficient Assumption) question, and the stem tells us to accept it as being absolutely and completely true ("if which of the following is assumed" means we must assume the truth of every answer). Our only task here is to ask ourselves this question:

"If this answer is true, does it prove that the author's conclusion is valid?"

If answer A is true - if you have to get most of the commission members to consent before you are allowed to release the report - then the fact that the chairperson didn't even consult the other members, let alone get the consent of most of them, then there is no way they should have released the report. By releasing the report they broke the rule laid out in answer A, and therefore they should not have done so.

Again, don't question the answers to a Justify question. Accept them, wholly and completely, and ask yourself whether they prove that the author is correct. Treat them as an additional premise to the argument, and see which one perfects the argument. It doesn't have to be true that you must get the consent of most members, but if you DO have to get that consent, and the chairperson did not, then they should not have released the report.

[AArbo031]

This was great feedback and definitely something I'll apply in the future.

Thank you so much!