#20 - Saunders: Everyone at last week's neighborhood

[Claire Horan]

Hi Biskam,

I don't think I can explain better than Athena did here:

Answer choice (D) states up front that no plan that "requires demolishing . . . houses" should be carried out until all other alternatives have been investigated. However, we know that the neighborhood association went ahead and demolished the Carlton Street houses without considering other alternatives. So there's no way that we can know whether demolishing the houses was the right decision, after all.

The question stem asks us to apply a principle to the stimulus that will determine what decision "should have been adopted." We are asked to do this after the events in the stimulus have already taken place. At this point, answer choice (D) will not help us figure out definitively which decision was the right one.

In contrast, even though the houses are already demolished, the principle in answer choice (B) would lead us to conclude that the opponents of demolition were right because demolishing the houses foreclosed the opportunity to rehabilitate them.

I hope this helps!

[sherrilynm]

Hi bk1111,

This question asks us to find a principle that, if established, would definitively prove one of the two sides of this debate right.

Answer choice (D) is incorrect because, by its own terms, it makes it impossible for us to determine whether demolishing the houses was the right decision.

Answer choice (D) states up front that no plan that "requires demolishing . . . houses" should be carried out until all other alternatives have been investigated. However, we know that the neighborhood association went ahead and demolished the Carlton Street houses without considering other alternatives. So there's no way that we can know whether demolishing the houses was the right decision, after all.

Answer choice (B), by contrast, can be applied to what happened (demolishing the houses without prior investigation of alternatives) and give us a conclusive answer that the pro-demolition group was wrong.

I hope this helps!

Athena Dalton

I've been thinking about this question for a while, because I was also tripped up by D. Is my thinking here correct: according to D, we should investigate other options (eg: rehabilitation of the houses) but D doesn't specify what the next step after that will be. So we've investigated our options - now what? Should we (continue to) rehabilitate, or should we demolish? Is that correct?

[Shannon Parker]

Yes. Answer Choice D merely states the principle that all the options should be investigated, it does not definitively determine which proposal was correct.

Good work.
Shannon

[andriana.caban]

Hi!

This question appears in the LR Training Type, page 235 as a Flaw in Reasoning question.

Can someone explain why answer choice (D) is correct? I chose (C). Am I wrong because the author describes vocal dissent in sentences like "some people tried to claim..." and "those who claimed that the problem could not be solved"?

What would it look like if (C) was correct? Would the author not even mention the opposition then?

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Andriana,

I've added a comprehensive explanation as the first post in this thread

[Katherinthesky]

How exactly does this type of question stem fall under "Justify the Conclusion" rather than under, say, Principle?
I've never seen this type of "curveball" question stem before and therefore I fell back on the idea that the correct answer choice would be proving the conclusion stating the majority were right in their assessment that demolition was the way to go - hence my answer A.

[Dave Killoran]

Hi Katherine,

Well, this is a Principle question, as evidenced by the "PR" appended to the Justify classification in the first post in this thread, so you are spot on there! But, Principle is not a standalone question type; the Principle designation simply overlays other types, such as Must, Weaken, Strengthen, etc. that's because having Principle in there doesn't ask you do to anything by itself, you still need a task. So, you never see Principle sitting alone by itself, it always adds on to something else. In this case, the wording of the stem indicates that a justification process is occurring ("would determine"), where you are proving/establishing a certain conclusion.

The task is always to follow what they said, and in this case they gave you two possible outcomes to consider, so you couldn't assume they'd go with the majority (and, in fact, it's less likely they'd go that direction simply because the other direction causes more work).

All that said, this is indeed an unusual stem, and really has occurred infrequently. Thanks!