7.
The rate of car theft in New York City has increased 19% from 2001. The blame for this rests with the soft-on-crime judges the new administration has appointed. The argument above would be weakened if it were true that


A) murders in this city has also increased by over 25 percent in the last year.
B) polls show that 65 percent of the population in this city opposes the death penalty.
C) 35 percent of the police in this city have been laid off in the last year due to budget cuts.
D) the city has hired 25 new judges in the last year to compensate for deaths and retirements.
E) 85 percent of the other cities in the nation have lower crime rates than does this city.




8. The increase in the number of false new stories revealed to be false serves to strengthen the argument that the media company CEO's first priority is audience size over reporting the truth. Local TV stations even have teams to identify false stories. The argument above assumes that:

A) the media company's CEO decides what stories are broadcast.
B) news stories exposed as fabrications are a recent phenomenon.
C) every news story must be factually verifiable.
D) fact checking is more comprehensive for small news organizations than major ones.
E) Until last year, news companies did not even admit to broadcasting fictional stories.

i say:

1. C
2. A

C) If we can show that something besides the court system may explain the increase in crime we would weaken the argument. The author assumes that there is no other cause. Tackle the choices, looking for another cause besides the allegedly lenient court sentences.
The argument's scope is the crime rate increase in this particular city only. In (A), the fact that white collar crime is also on the rise is more of a strengthener than a weakener. (C) presents an alternative explanation for the increase in crime (reduction in police). As for (B), what if 65 percent of people in the city oppose capital punishment? This provides little insight into why crime has gone up since last year. (D) tells us that numerous judges have been replaced in the last year. It is possible that the new judges are more lenient, but this would only strengthen the author's argument. (E) does not compare one city to another.


(A) This conclusion makes sense only if we assume (A), that the media CEO is the one who decides what to print. If (A) weren't true and this decision were up to someone other than the media CEO, the argument would fall apart. (B) is not relevant.



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