#13 - James: Many people claim that the voting public is

[pandapaws]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your reply. I was confused by the part of your previous reply towards the end that starts with"Finally, even if Reade's opponents..." My question was, even if Reade's opponents hypothetically did discuss the complex campaign issues, since we know Reade is more popular than any other candidate, wouldn't this answer choice still strengthen Maria's counter to James since it shows that Reade being the most popular relative to his competitors is not due to his discussion of complex campaign issues but rather his competence and trustworthy character? I don't understand how this wouldn't weaken James's argument due to the fact that his opponents are not as popular as him. Even if his opponents are not unpopular, I thought this relative relationship was enough for the argument to be weakened.

[Dana D]

Hey Panda,

Going off Jeff's earlier point about "some" - some can mean as little as one, or all. Jeff pointed out that this might mean Reade's opponents are talking about 1 of the same issues as Reade. Perhaps then Reade is more popular than other opponents simply because he's talking about 10 additional complex issues - more than his opponents. In this case, it is still the discussion of complex issues that is causing Reade's popularity, which undermines Maria's point. That is a valid reading of answer choice (A).

It seems like you are leaning towards an alternative reading of answer choice (A) based on "some" = all. Suppose all of Reade's opponents are talking about all the same issues as Reade. In that case, sure, it would support Maria's inference that there has to be something else special about this candidate - here, she thinks that's his appearance as competant and trustworthy.

The issue is that these are both valid readings of answer choice (A) based on the ambiguity of "some", and we need to pick the answer choice that most strengthens Maria's counter. Assuming you're between multiple answer choices on a question like this, you don't want to think about how answer choice (A) and (D) both could strengthen the argument, you want to think which one does a better job at that. Here, since there's a way to read answer choice (A) that wouldn't strengthen the argument at all, we should eliminate that as a possible correct answer.

hope that helps!