mneeti wrote:
Hi Karishma, to me answer choice (B) looks more like an inference; since second line very clearly says 90% of cancellations are from the districts controlled by the opposition. This indirectly means that most of the cancellations were not from the president's districts i.e. answer choice (B), then why should we classify it as an assumption and not inference?
On the contrary, (A) looks a better assumption to me if you apply negating rule.
Please clarify my doubts. Thank you.
Another way to figure out an assumption is inserting it in the argument with the premises and then checking whether the conclusion needs the assumption.
Argument:
There are districts controlled by the President and there are some controlled by the opposition parties.
The President canceled some projects.
90% of those were located in the opposition party districts. So opposition has been crying foul.
The secretary is defending the President. He says that all of these were identified as wasteful by non partisan auditors.
Most of the wasteful projects identified were from opposition's districts. (That is why most of the canceled projects are from opposition's districts)
Conclusion: the President's choice was clearly motivated by sound budgetary policy, not partisan politics.
Mind you, you already have the conclusion of the argument and that is "President's choice was clearly motivated by sound budgetary policy, not partisan politics". But to prove that this is true, we need to know that most wasteful projects identified were from opposition's districts. What if the non partisan auditors identified 100 projects as wasteful out of which 90 were from President's districts but the President chose to cancel the rest of the 10 wasteful projects (which were from opposition's districts). In this case, the President is motivated by politics, right? So we need to know that the wasteful projects were predominantly from opposition's districts only.
As for why (A) is not an assumption, please see my post right above yours.