Bunuel wrote:
Politician: Some of my opponents have argued on theoretical grounds in favor of reducing social spending. Instead of arguing that there is excessive public expenditure on social programs, my opponents should focus on the main cause of deficit spending: the fact that government is bloated with bureaucrats and self-aggrandizing politicians. It is unwarranted, therefore, to reduce social expenditure.
A reasoning flaw in the politician’s argument is that the argument
(A) does not address the arguments advanced by the politician’s opponents
(B) makes an attack on the character of opponents
(C) takes for granted that deficit spending has just one cause
(D) portrays opponents’ views as more extreme than they really are
(E) fails to make clear what counts as excessive spending
EXPLANATION FROM Fox LSAT
I couldn’t predict this one in advance, because it seemed as if the politician was simply saying, “My opponents say we should focus on X, and I say we should focus on Y.” I didn’t immediately see anything wrong with that.
A) Hmm. I think it’s true that the politician has not addressed the theoretical arguments advanced by his opponents. “Instead of paying attention to the arguments of my opponents, let’s all concentrate on this shiny thing over here!” Also, the politician does, in the final sentence, claim that his opponents are wrong. It’s impossible to logically prove that your opponents are wrong without addressing their argument. So this looks pretty good.
B) The politician does drop an insult into his argument, somewhat unnecessarily using the pejorative “self-aggrandizing.” But I would like this answer better if the politician had used only insults and not presented any relevant arguments. If deficit spending is the issue, then “government is bloated with bureaucrats” is relevant even if it’s insulting. Insults by themselves are not necessarily flaws. Furthermore, are we sure the politician is accusing his opponents of bureaucracy- bloating and self-aggrandizing? Maybe he's talking about other folks. This is out.
C) No way. The politician says “the main cause,” which actually suggests that the politician believes there is more than one cause. That’s enough to make this answer conclusively wrong. The politician’s argument simply does not take for granted that there is only one cause, so we can’t pick this answer.
D) We don’t know what the opponents’ views really are, so how could we know whether the politician has portrayed those views as more extreme than they are in reality? This is out.
E) No way. You don’t have to define every single term in your argument.
The only credible answer here is A, so we’ve got to go with that