jabhatta2 wrote:
Hi
ReedArnoldMPREP - i understand the OA does not have to 'proove' the conclusion but i think (B) has a big assumption
If you pick (B) - arent you assuming that the work is different in the four provincial cities ?
For example - an teacher. Even if you are working in 4 different cities, the work material is going to be the same if you are in NY / Chicago / texas or california.
Even if you get these 'official documents', how can one say whether you were moving across 4 cities or you live in NY for some time / then moved to chicago / then texas and finally california ?
One of the more difficult things in CR is not being 'critical' of answer choices as you are for the arguments themselves. On an argument you want to ask "Well, is this conclusion true? What if [x]?" You don't really want to do that for answer choices.
Every CR answer choice is one of three things: opposite, irrelevant, or correct. That is, it (on its own terms) either does the OPPOSITE of what we need the answer to do (weaken instead of strengthen, be the negation of an assumption instead of being an assumption) or is IRRELEVANT to what we need the answer to do or is CORRECT.
Here's the deal: you should add virtually *nothing* to an answer choice to move it from one to the other. You shouldn't add things to an irrelevant answer to make it strengthen, nor should you add possibilities to strengtheners to make it weakeners.
Is it *possible* that the documents from the four different cities and the four different magistrates are totally indistinguishable, and therefore the documents from this official don't end up being useful to determine the pattern of his administrative service? Sure. But is there any reason to think so? No. So on it's own, having documents from this official's early career--working in one city, or in four different cities, under four different magistrates--seems most likely to be helpful (since they are different cities, which will have different problems, different people involved, different magistrates, different buildings and street names etc etc etc)... it seems that this will help us answer the question about the guy's schedule.
The question is, *on its own* does B seem like it will help us determine the guy's schedule? Well there are three options: is it IRRELEVANT to the question? ...No, I don't think so. Is it the OPPOSITE of what we want answer to do? (Meaning, is it relevant to the question. but will it make it MORE difficult or not help at all?) "Well, if we consider that maybe all the documents in different cities are indistinguishable..." Is there any reason to think that? No. Okay, so... don't! Is it the CORRECT answer? "Well, it's not, if we consider that maybe all the documents in different cities are indistinguishable." But don't!
You have to consider this big new thing, to move the CORRECT answer to an IRRELEVANT answer. But that big new thing has NO textual support (and doesn't seem plausible! Also, as a note, teaching in different cities WOULD have some pretty distinguishing markers, I suspect. Each state has its own curriculum).