Press secretary: Our critics claim that the President's recent highway project cancellations demonstrate a vindictive desire to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties. They offer as evidence the fact that 90% of the projects cancelled were in such districts. But all of the cancelled projects had been identified as wasteful in a report written by respected nonpartisan auditors. So the President's choice was clearly motivated by sound budgetary policy, not partisan politics.
Which of the following is an assumption on which the press secretary's argument depends?
A. Canceling highway projects was not the only way for the President to punish legislative districts controlled by opposition parties.
B. The scheduled highway projects identified as wasteful in the report were not mostly projects in districts controlled by the President's party.
C. The number of projects cancelled was a significant proportion of all the highway projects that were to be undertaken by the government in the near future.
D. Nonpartisan auditors were President's friends.
E. Reports by nonpartisan auditors are not generally regarded by the opposition parties as a source of objective assessment of government projects.
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"Forums are meant to benefit all. No one is interested in knowing what your guesses are. Please explain the reasoning behind the answer you chose. This will also help you organize your thoughts quickly during the exam."

E.

C

E would undermine the author's conclusion.

Can someone please explain the reasoning.I am totally lost on this one.

Thanks.

Best.

Agree with Christoph's reasoning.

I initially picked E because I miss read "are not generally regarded ..." as "are generally regarded..."

Now I see B makes sense

I think we are confusing between the arguments of crtics and argument of press sec.
My understanding is ..
Press Sec'c argument is "all of the cancelled projects had been identified as wasteful in a report written by respected nonpartisan auditors"

and his argument is convincing if non partisan party's reports are not prone to objection and that's what press sec assumes.

so I think the answer should be "E".

Please correct me If I am wrong .

Thanks,
Shalini

hard one.
I can not prethink an assumption before going to the answer choices. experts, pls, come in . how to do this?

Pre-thinking an assumption can really help you stay on track and identify the correct answer quickly. There may be multiple assumptions but pre-thinking is useful in most cases because you understand the argument well before jumping into the options.

Argument:
There are districts controlled and 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.
Conclusion: the President's choice was clearly motivated by sound budgetary policy, not partisan politics.

Now we have to think an assumption for this conclusion.

Think of a political argument in which you are taking part. You have to assume that whatever the other person says is the truth. You have to put forward a counter point keeping that in mind. So the other person says, 'all of these were identified as wasteful by non partisan auditors.'
The question that should come to your mind is: which other projects did the non partisan auditors identify as wasteful? Say, they identified 20 wasteful projects. 12 from the President's districts and 8 from the opposition's. What if the President chose all the projects to be canceled from the 8 wasteful projects of the opposition's districts? Everything said in the argument stays true but the conclusion becomes invalid. The President would have been motivated by partisan politics in that case.
The assumption you are looking for: Not many of the projects identified as wasteful were from the President's districts.

Hence (B) is your assumption.
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the study of cr is practice of prethinking. redoing old questions often prevents us from prethinking because we remember the argument. this is dangerous

how to prethink assumption
any tips for prethinking
pls explain, thank you