- Sun Mar 10, 2019 9:37 pm
#63294
Hi Morehouse20!
Like a large number of Assumption questions, success here depends on us finding the "gap" between the relevant premise(s) and the conclusion.
The steps of reading the stimulus in an Assumption question should always be as follows:
1) Find the main conclusion and reject it (it is, after all, based on as assumption so we know it's invalid)
2) Find the relevant premises and trust them
3) Find the gap/flaw/difference between major terms across the premise/conclusion divide.
The argument concludes that attacking an opponent on philosophical grounds is generally more effective than attacking the details of their policy proposals. This idea is used in the conclusion but never anywhere in the given evidence, so that concept is the reason why the argument is currently flawed, and is almost guaranteed to be what the right answer will cover.
The premises talk of what attacking philosophy does and attacking policy doesn't, that it allows for more context and allows a story to be told. The stimulus ends with the author stating that this sort of attack is emotionally compelling. Since we have no idea if being emotionally compelling has anything to do with a political attack being effective, this is the flaw behind the argument, and we should be pre-phrasing a connection between these two terms, which happens in the correct response of B.
The problem with C, is that it acts like a connection between story and context is what the argument needed to assume, when it was actually between being emotionally compelling and generally effective. The argument states as a premise that philosophical attacks, through linking the opponent's proposals to an ideological scheme, provide context and tell a story. What we are never told is that other political attacks (say on policy, for example) don't do those things. So, even if those attacks that tell a story don't always provide more context than those that do not (this is basically the negation of C), we still know that they do provide context, which still amounts to being emotionally compelling.
So, the argument can survive with the negation of answer choice C. But, if we run the Assumption Negation Technique on B, knowing that emotionally compelling arguments are not generally more effective completely kills the argument, verifying B as the correct response. he argument falls apart.
Hope that helps!
