#12 - Pundit: People complain about how ineffectual their

[DAthenour]

Hi Powerscore,

I originally got this question wrong because I missed the shift in scope: from complaints about the ineffectuality of their representatives to a conclusion about overall dissatisfaction. Upon recognizing that, I could quickly pick out why the answer was A. However, on my original pass through of this section, I chose answer choice D. I'm wondering if you might be able to help distinguish why exactly D is wrong. Is the problem that the stimulus indicates legislative compromise is part of ineffectuality, and not popular dissatisfaction?

Thanks so much for your help!

[nicholaspavic]

Hi DAthenour,

Good question and I am glad that you were able to sort out why Answer Choice (A) is correct. And I think that we probably both recognize that in this stimulus, cause and effect are being challenged here with the attack on a failure by the author to consider alternate cause and effect which is why (A) is right.

As far as as why Answer Option (D) is incorrect, the problem doesn't start with the stimulus's link of compromise to ineffectuality and that to popular dissatisfaction. In fact, the stimulus is linking those ideas. Rather (D) seems to be an overgeneralization of what the stimulus is saying. Because the author is not stating that all legislative compromise results dissatisfaction (ie people complaining) rather she is merely stating that the compromises arising from the competition caused by the scarcity of funds is something that causes the apparent ineffectuality.

Thanks for the great question and I hope this helps!

[DAthenour]

Thanks for your response, that helps clear things up. Upon looking at this further I am wondering if it could be said that D is also wrong because it incorrectly reverses the assumption that we're trying to identify.

The stimulus says "When dissatisfaction rest assured, they're just trying to compromise and do what we elected them to do.

But D says "When compromise (i.e. do what we elected them to do) popular dissatisfaction. Which is not what the author is trying to say.

Thus, if D were arranged in the opposite order (dissatisfaction compromise), would that be the correct flawed assumption? Again, I know this is nitty gritty stuff but I appreciate your help.

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi DAthenour,

You are completely correct in how you understood the logical relationships between dissatisfaction and compromise in the stimulus. Answer choice (D) does incorrectly reverse the relationship expressed by the speaker.

However, even if we were given a hypothetical answer choice (F) that correctly described this relationship, it would not correctly pick out the flaw in the argument.

The statement that you are describing is the conclusion of the argument. I would not agree that this argument is flawed because it takes the conclusion for granted. After all, there is some evidence given for the conclusion, so we can't say that the speaker "took it for granted."

[DAthenour]

That is very helpful thank you for your thoughtful responses.

[DAthenour]

That is very helpful thank you for your thoughtful responses.

[Morgan2cats]

Hi Powerscore,

I originally got this question wrong because I was struggling with choice (E). Is it because all legislative representatives are elected? I'm wondering if you might be able to help distinguish why exactly (E) is wrong.

Thanks so much for your help!

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Morgan,

Answer E states "only elected public servants tend to elicit dissatisfaction among the public." In other words, Answer E is saying that the argument incorrectly assumes (takes for granted) that only public servants elicit public dissatisfaction and that anyone else doesn't elicit public dissatisfaction.

The argument never makes this assumption. The argument doesn't care or rely on what is true about people who aren't public servants. Instead the argument shifts from a premise about people complaining about how ineffectual their legislative representatives are to concluding that any dissatisfaction the public has with their legislative representatives can be explained by the representative having to do what they were elected to do (which makes them ineffectual because they need to compromise.)

The problem is that people may have other reasons to be dissatisfied with their legislative representatives that have nothing to do with them being ineffectual, which is correctly described in Answer A.