#6 - A politician can neither be reelected nor avoid censure

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Must Be True—SN. The correct answer choice is (A)

This stimulus presents another classic multiple necessary condition relationship. Here we are told that if a politician is known to be involved in any serious scandals then that politician will not be reelected nor will he/she avoid censure.

• Not Reelected
  Serious Scandal +
  Not Avoid Censure

Finally, since several politicians have recently been shown to be involved in a serious scandal, you know that these politicians cannot be reelected (given) and they cannot avoid censure. The stimulus states that the politicians will not be reelected, so the only remaining piece is that they cannot avoid censure (a solid prephrase).

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. As mentioned above you can conclude with certainty that the politicians in the scandal cannot avoid/escape censure.

Answer choice (B): This is a Mistaken Negation. There is no way to know what would happen if there had been no scandal.

Answer choice (C): This is a Mistaken Reversal. The stimulus tells us that scandal indicates censure, while this answer choice reverses those terms to conclude incorrectly that censure is sufficient to show a scandal must have occurred.

Answer choice (D): There is no way to know whether the politicians initially benefitted from the conspiracy or the scandal.

Answer choice (E): While it is possible that this answer choice is true, there is no way to conclude with certainty that some politicians avoid detection when they are involved in a scandal. All that we are told is what happens when politicians are discovered.

[ellenb]

Dear Powerscore,

So, I have read the explanations and still have a question on how to diagram answer choice C for this question.

I know when I have a "no" it is introducing the sufficient and it is negating the necessary here in this answer we have a "no" and an "unless" which is introducing the necessary and negating the sufficient.

Thus,

than No politician censured unless involved in a scandal

Than I have if I apply the above rules : not politician censured--> not involved in a scandal
because (unless in negating politician and no is negating scandal)

thus CP is going to be: involved in scandal-->politician censured

and in the stimulus we have involved in scanda-->politician censured,


so how is answer choice C a mistaken Reversal, or have I diagramed this answer choice incorrectly? Please let me know.


Also, I am also curious as to why D is wrong, I get it that I think it is wrong because we know only when that when politicians are involved in scandals we can conclude that they cannot avoid censure, however we cannnot say that they avoid detection also. Is this why it is wrong?



Thanks in advance!

Regards,

Ellen

[Adam Tyson]

Hey Ellen, thanks for the question. It does look like you are a bit off on your original diagram of answer C, and here's how:

The answer says No politician is censored unless known to be involved in serious scandal. Start with the Unless Equation, which you got right. Known to be involved is your necessary condition (call it KISS). Now, take the OTHER condition in the relationship, negate it, and that becomes your sufficient condition. So "no politician is censored" becomes "some politician is censored" or, perhaps, "IF a politician is censored" (call that one PC). That gives you this diagram:

PC -> KISS

So, if a politician is censored, he must be known to be involved in serious scandal. That's a mistaken reversal of what we wanted here.

I think you may have been slightly mis-applying a rule about "no" that kicks in when you have something like this:

No fish is a mammal

That gets diagrammed as F -> M

So why didn't it apply here? It did, sort of. The first few words, "no politician is censored", could be taken as a conditional statement on their own, diagrammed as P -> C (If you are a politician, you are not censored). Then we can continue on and read the statement as c unless KISS, at which point we apply the Unless Equation and get C -> Kiss (if censored, known to be involved). What happened to the element of "politician", you might ask? Perhaps the best way to look at that is as a subscript, like this:

Cp -> KISSp

Tricky one, I know. Prephrasing should help you tremendously on this one - you know that the sufficient condition in the original diagram was met, and so both necessary ones must be, too. Just look for the answer that says that censure must happen and you have answer A and a winner!

As to the other answer you were looking at, did you mean answer E? That's the one that deals with avoiding detection. Since this is a Must Be True question we want to avoid any new info (the Fact Test). We have no way of knowing whether some politicians avoid detection - we only know what happens if they don't!

[mlhousto]

I'm not sure how to diagram the 'neither or nor' portion of the question. I think that the sufficient conditions are the neither reelection nor avoid censure and serious scandals are the necessary. I'm just not sure how to put that on paper.

[BethRibet]

Hi Mlhousto,

Thanks for the question.

You could diagram this question like this:

SS (serious scandals) ---> ~R (not re-elected) + ~AC (not avoid censure).
Neither/nor essentially means that two negated conditions are joined by an "and", as in: not A + not B.

Hope this helps!
Beth

[mlhousto]

Thanks Beth, that made a world of difference!

[Naminyar]

Hello PowerScore Staff!

I chose answer choice B and the following is why,

SS - Involved in serious scandal
R - Re-elected
AC- Avoid Cencure

My diagram is:

... Not R
SS ——> And
... Not AC

TO NEGATE THE DIAGRAM WE HAVE:

R
And (or) ———> No SS
AC


Answer choice B States,
If there had been no scandal, the prominent politician would be re-elected.

Answer choice B is the negated version of our diagram.

If someone says that answer choice B is wrong because it does not encompass both re-election and avoiding sencure so is answer choice A which is correct according to PowerScore LR Bible. Answer choice A States, “The prominent politicians cannot escape cencure by their colleagues” it is a repeat of the diagram but it does not encompass the re-election part.

Would you please clearing that?
Thanks in advance

[Adam Tyson]

Thanks for your question, Naminyar! You're correct that answer B is a negation of our argument, in that it negates the conditions while leaving them in their original order. We call that a Mistaken Negation, and it's faulty logic, as opposed to the valid Contrapositive you diagrammed (and that should be an Or, not an And). That's why B is incorrect!

Answer A doesn't need to mention re-election, because the stimulus already told us they won't be re-elected! This correct answer only needs to tell us that the other necessary condition, that they cannot avoid censure, must also occur.

I hope that helps!

[Jay]

Hello.

Isn't (A) wrong because this is a Exaggeration?
the stimulus said "Several" prominent politicians. But (A) seems to refer to "all" the prominent politicians.

[Claire Horan]

Hi Jay,

Answer Choice (A) refers to "The prominent politicians." "The" is a definite article that refers here to a noun that has already been mentioned (i.e., the prominent politicians who were mentioned in the stimulus). So, answer choice (A) really is only referring to those prominent politicians that are discussed in the stimulus and not any others.

But it's a good thing that you are on the lookout for slight differences in wording. If (A) said "Prominent politicians," that would mean all prominent politicians or prominent politicians in general. Notice that in the stimulus, the first sentence does refer to any politician, and that's why that part of the stimulus can be diagrammed as a sufficient/necessary relationship applying to all politicians.

Good question, and kudos to you for being on the lookout for slight differences in language!