sathiyavelan wrote:
The below question is very relevant, can anybody answer it? Thanks.
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Kyle,
Thanks for this, a quick questions here is, the argument states that, the city council will "certainly" vote in favor...
In this case there is no doubt as to whether they will or won't, its certain they will, hence i feel that D is not the apt answer choice.
C would be a better weakning statement in this case.
Kindly advice with your thoughts on this.
Thanks
Watch out for the wording in these arguments. The wording does say "will certainly vote", but that phrase is part of the conclusion and therefore is not factual (conclusions are always opinion - in this case it is a strongly worded opinion). For example, I can state that I will certainly win the lottery because I feel lucky today. I said certainly, but there is no way to be certain about this future, super uncertain event. Recognizing that this "certainty" is just an opinion, we are not required to have universal benefit to real estate firms as answer choice C might suggest.
The argument is structured like this:
Conclusion: The city council will certainly approve development plan (in spite of objections)
Premise: Most campaign contributions come from real estate firms who would benefit from plan
We are asked to weaken the argument, so we need to attack an assumption. Here the author is assuming that because a city council member receives campaign funds from a certain group he/she will always vote in favor of measures that will benefit that group. Answer choice D attacks the assumption by saying that city council members often oppose measures that benefit their campaign contributors.
Does that clear things up?
KW