In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co : Critical Reasoning (CR)

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asiscool

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In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

11 Jan 2017, 00:22

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In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the constitution can only be initiated after a successful vote on a national referendum. In order to initiate a referendum, a citizen must merely collect 100,000 voters' signatures, in support of a given issue, over a period of 18 months. Clearly, the Swiss government must be spending a lot of time amending the country's constitution.

Which of the following premises, if true, best supports the conclusion above?

A. Swiss citizens initiate many referenda every year.
B. It is easy for a citizen to collect 100,000 signatures for a constitutional amendment within 18 months.
C. The Swiss government spends much more time on constitutional amendments than governments of other countries do.
D. All referenda must be initiated by Swiss citizens over 18 years old.
E. Referenda requiring constitutional amendments are both frequent and popular with Swiss voters.

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chetan2u

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

25 Jan 2017, 22:38

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asiscool wrote:

In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the constitution can only be initiated after a successful vote on a national referendum. In order to initiate a referendum, a citizen must merely collect 100,000 voters' signatures, in support of a given issue, over a period of 18 months. Clearly, the Swiss government must be spending a lot of time amending the country's constitution.

Which of the following premises, if true, best supports the conclusion above?

A. Swiss citizens initiate many referenda every year.
B. It is easy for a citizen to collect 100,000 signatures for a constitutional amendment within 18 months.
C. The Swiss government spends much more time on constitutional amendments than governments of other countries do.
D. All referenda must be initiated by Swiss citizens over 18 years old.
E. Referenda requiring constitutional amendments are both frequent and popular with Swiss voters.

Hi
for all those confused between B and E, look for what is asked and what does each choice tell us

So let's look a the flow/stages of events that lead to the amendment

1. Citizens initiate referendum by taking signatures of 10000 persons.
2. After initiation, the government puts it through voting.
3. If successfully voted, amendment is done

Now what does the Q conclude..
government spends a lot of time on amendments.

So we are talking of stage 3 only. It doesn't matter how often stage 1 or 2 happens..

With this info - INITIATING a referendum and constitutional amendments are different- if you look at the choice B, it is talking of stage 1, so eliminate it...

ONLY E talks of stage 3..
Ans E

I hope it helps all in understanding the reasoning.
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sayantanc2k

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In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

01 Mar 2017, 03:34

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sleepynut wrote:

Hi experts,
From this question,there are several steps to establish amendments to the constitution : 1) gather 100,000 signature 2) initiate a national referendum 3)successfully vote to amend the constitution

Option E tells us that Swiss voter are familiar with referenda.Just that,how it can be interpret that the government process will be long?

That the precedure takes a long time is already given in the passage ("...over a period of 18 months"). In fact this part is the premise of the argument.

Premise: Procedure of amendment takes a long time.
Conclusion: Thus a lot of time is spent for amendment.

The above premise--> concluison would be invalid if there are no (or few) amendment requests - in that case, although it remains true that the procedure takes a long time, actually time would not be spent on the proceudre, because there are no (or few) amendment requests.

Option E is the required assumption that there are in fact many amendment requests, and thus a lot of time is actually required to be spent on amendments.

(Compare with the following:
Premise: I take a long time to read a book.
Conclusion: I soend a long time reading books.

If I do not read books at all, then my argument would be invalid.
Thus,
Assumption: There are quite a few books that I read.)

B

deep14

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

11 Jan 2017, 00:31

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asiscool wrote:

In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the constitution can only be initiated after a successful vote on a national referendum. In order to initiate a referendum, a citizen must merely collect 100,000 voters' signatures, in support of a given issue, over a period of 18 months. Clearly, the Swiss government must be spending a lot of time amending the country's constitution.

Which of the following premises, if true, best supports the conclusion above?

A. Swiss citizens initiate many referenda every year.
B. It is easy for a citizen to collect 100,000 signatures for a constitutional amendment within 18 months.
C. The Swiss government spends much more time on constitutional amendments than governments of other countries do.
D. All referenda must be initiated by Swiss citizens over 18 years old.
E. Referenda requiring constitutional amendments are both frequent and popular with Swiss voters.

E.
B is a fact that very remotely weakens the conclusion. C and D are irrelevant. A is close but not specific enough for the given argument. It talks about any referenda, not just the ones involving constitutional ammendment

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arunavamunshi1988

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

11 Jan 2017, 12:54

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deep14 wrote:

asiscool wrote:

In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the constitution can only be initiated after a successful vote on a national referendum. In order to initiate a referendum, a citizen must merely collect 100,000 voters' signatures, in support of a given issue, over a period of 18 months. Clearly, the Swiss government must be spending a lot of time amending the country's constitution.

Which of the following premises, if true, best supports the conclusion above?

A. Swiss citizens initiate many referenda every year.
B. It is easy for a citizen to collect 100,000 signatures for a constitutional amendment within 18 months.
C. The Swiss government spends much more time on constitutional amendments than governments of other countries do.
D. All referenda must be initiated by Swiss citizens over 18 years old.
E. Referenda requiring constitutional amendments are both frequent and popular with Swiss voters.

E.
B is a fact that very remotely weakens the conclusion. C and D are irrelevant. A is close but not specific enough for the given argument. It talks about any referenda, not just the ones involving constitutional ammendment

Can you please explain why E is correct? How the popularity of referendum is linked to the time?

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carcass

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

12 Jan 2017, 03:04

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A. Swiss citizens initiate many referenda every year.

No information about and out of scope

B. It is easy for a citizen to collect 100,000 signatures for a constitutional amendment within 18 months.

No information how and whether it is easy or not. out of scope

C. The Swiss government spends much more time on constitutional amendments than governments of other countries do.

What happens in other countries is out of scope

D. All referenda must be initiated by Swiss citizens over 18 years old.

No info about. Moreover, irrelevant

E. Referenda requiring constitutional amendments are both frequent and popular with Swiss voters.

The right choice
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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

12 Jan 2017, 10:24

asiscool wrote:

In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the constitution can only be initiated after a successful vote on a national referendum. In order to initiate a referendum, a citizen must merely collect 100,000 voters' signatures, in support of a given issue, over a period of 18 months. Clearly, the Swiss government must be spending a lot of time amending the country's constitution.

Which of the following premises, if true, best supports the conclusion above?

A. Swiss citizens initiate many referenda every year.
B. It is easy for a citizen to collect 100,000 signatures for a constitutional amendment within 18 months.
C. The Swiss government spends much more time on constitutional amendments than governments of other countries do.
D. All referenda must be initiated by Swiss citizens over 18 years old.
E. Referenda requiring constitutional amendments are both frequent and popular with Swiss voters.

stumped by the queston..
i selected B .

D

abhishekdadarwal2009

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

17 Jan 2017, 16:19

1

Kudos

A. Swiss citizens initiate many referenda every year.
i chose A first but realized that the choice is blunt and vague as the referenda may or may not have constitutional amendments.
B. It is easy for a citizen to collect 100,000 signatures for a constitutional amendment within 18 months.
this choice also is not specific as it may be possible that ther is only one constitutional amenedment every 18months as the number of referendas are not specified.
C. The Swiss government spends much more time on constitutional amendments than governments of other countries do.
The comparison is out of scope
D. All referenda must be initiated by Swiss citizens over 18 years old.
the age limit is also out of scope
E. Referenda requiring constitutional amendments are both frequent and popular with Swiss voters.
correct answer by elemination

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AR15J

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

24 Jan 2017, 12:53

Hi Expert,

Please explain the cause of rejecting the choice B. I read the existing post but am not convinced with the reason of rejecting choice B.

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AR15J

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

24 Jan 2017, 12:54

Hi Expert,

Please explain the cause of rejecting the choice B. I read the existing post but am not convinced with the reason of rejecting choice B.

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RMD007

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

25 Jan 2017, 21:44

AR15J wrote:

Hi Expert,

Please explain the cause of rejecting the choice B. I read the existing post but am not convinced with the reason of rejecting choice B.

I got this question wrong, but I can explain why B is wrong here.

Argument structure is as follows:
In swiss -
1. Constitution can be initiated by referendum.
2. referendum should have--
i - Issue on which referendum is based should be 18 months long.
ii - 100K Signatures.
Conclusion - Swiss takes long time to amend a constitution.

To amend a constitution, time required is - Issue should be 18 months long + time reqd for a citizen to take 100K signatures.

If we say that it is easy to take 100K signatures, time reqd for overall process is likely to decrease. This is opposite of the conclusion.

Later part of option B i.e. for a constitutional amendment within 18 months. is a trap. It uses the phrase mentioned in argument but it is not relating to the argument.

B

linaanup@gmail.com

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

28 Feb 2017, 12:34

" A.Swiss citizens initiate many referenda every year" Now read the first sentence "In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the constitution can only be initiated after a successful vote on a national referendum. In order to initiate a referendum, a citizen must merely collect 100,000 voters' signatures, in support of a given issue, over a period of 18 months..

Referenda cannot be initiated in 12 months.

Can anyone validate my assumption please?

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

28 Feb 2017, 22:54

down to option B&E, chose E as the answer , eliminated B because if It is easy for a citizen to collect 100,000 signatures for a constitutional amendment within 18 months, then why would swiss govt. spend a lot time on passing amendment. so does not supports the conclusion.

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

01 Mar 2017, 03:10

Hi experts,
From this question,there are several steps to establish amendments to the constitution : 1) gather 100,000 signature 2) initiate a national referendum 3)successfully vote to amend the constitution

Option E tells us that Swiss voter are familiar with referenda.Just that,how it can be interpret that the government process will be long?

B

gmat4varun

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

01 Mar 2017, 03:24

I was stuck between two answer options Option A and Option E.
Option E is more appropriate as it says "Referenda requiring constitutional amendments are both frequent and popular" . Main point to note is the word Frequent, because if something is happening frequently then more time is spent doing that altogether .

Lets say doing one amendment takes 15 days and in a year if 10 amendments are happening then the today days is 15*10=150 .So for more number of amendments more time will be spent .

Hope I am able to make some point .

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

03 Mar 2017, 03:09

sayantanc2k wrote:

sleepynut wrote:

Hi experts,
From this question,there are several steps to establish amendments to the constitution : 1) gather 100,000 signature 2) initiate a national referendum 3)successfully vote to amend the constitution

Option E tells us that Swiss voter are familiar with referenda.Just that,how it can be interpret that the government process will be long?

That the precedure takes a long time is already given in the passage ("...over a period of 18 months"). In fact this part is the premise of the argument.

Premise: Procedure of amendment takes a long time.
Conclusion: Thus a lot of time is spent for amendment.

The above premise--> concluison would be invalid if there are no (or few) amendment requests - in that case, although it remains true that the procedure takes a long time, actually time would not be spent on the proceudre, because there are no (or few) amendment requests.

Option E is the required assumption that there are in fact many amendment requests, and thus a lot of time is actually required to be spent on amendments.

(Compare with the following:
Premise: I take a long time to read a book.
Conclusion: I soend a long time reading books.

If I do not read books at all, then my argument would be invalid.
Thus,
Assumption: There are quite a few books that I read.)

Is A only wrong because it talks about referenda in general not the ones requiring amendment?

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sayantanc2k

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

04 Mar 2017, 12:20

Expert Reply

goforgmat wrote:

sayantanc2k wrote:

sleepynut wrote:

Hi experts,
From this question,there are several steps to establish amendments to the constitution : 1) gather 100,000 signature 2) initiate a national referendum 3)successfully vote to amend the constitution

Option E tells us that Swiss voter are familiar with referenda.Just that,how it can be interpret that the government process will be long?

That the precedure takes a long time is already given in the passage ("...over a period of 18 months"). In fact this part is the premise of the argument.

Premise: Procedure of amendment takes a long time.
Conclusion: Thus a lot of time is spent for amendment.

The above premise--> concluison would be invalid if there are no (or few) amendment requests - in that case, although it remains true that the procedure takes a long time, actually time would not be spent on the proceudre, because there are no (or few) amendment requests.

Option E is the required assumption that there are in fact many amendment requests, and thus a lot of time is actually required to be spent on amendments.

(Compare with the following:
Premise: I take a long time to read a book.
Conclusion: I soend a long time reading books.

If I do not read books at all, then my argument would be invalid.
Thus,
Assumption: There are quite a few books that I read.)

Is A only wrong because it talks about referenda in general not the ones requiring amendment?

Yes, your understanding is correct.

B

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

09 Aug 2017, 20:52

sayantanc2k wrote:

goforgmat wrote:

Is A only wrong because it talks about referenda in general not the ones requiring amendment?

Yes, your understanding is correct.

Correct me if I'm wrong - I felt that Option A was a weakener as well as an irrelevant option.

The procedure to get signatures takes a long time (18 months). Option A mentions that they don't spend 18 months on every referendum. They have multiple things going on in parallel.

Possible outcomes of "Initiating" multiple referenda each year:
1. They initiate it - but many of them don't really get the 100,000 votes [Says nothing about the time spent - irrelevant]
2. They initiate it - but get the votes within 2 days? Not a lot of time spent, even though they have 18 months [says nothing about the time spent - irrelevant]
3. They do things in parallel - if they are allowed to initiate multiple referenda each year, they don't need to spend 36 months for 2 referenda, they can do it in the same year [weakens - says they spend less time because they can initiate multiple referenda in a year]

This is a trap option - makes you feel that they can do more in less time.

B

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

10 Aug 2017, 00:05

I'm still unable to comprehend the reasoning behind option E.
Suppose the Swiss citizens initiate 100 referenda each year, a figure that may suggest that referenda's are popular among the citizens. However, it is not certain whether the referenda's would get the requisite number of votes. It is also possible that none of the referenda got the requisite number of votes, and hence no time was spent by the government in amending the Constitution.

B

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Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

10 Aug 2017, 02:41

nitesh181989 wrote:

I'm still unable to comprehend the reasoning behind option E.
Suppose the Swiss citizens initiate 100 referenda each year, a figure that may suggest that referenda's are popular among the citizens. However, it is not certain whether the referenda's would get the requisite number of votes. It is also possible that none of the referenda got the requisite number of votes, and hence no time was spent by the government in amending the Constitution.

I re-read the question after your comment, and it looks like "if you get 100,000 votes, you can initiate the referendum". So, the idea of a referendum not getting enough votes is not valid.

So, E says - frequent (many referenda) & popular (that cross 100,000 votes) referenda that require constitutional amendment -> more time.
A refers to those referenda (generic; may include those that do not require amendment)

gmatclubot

Re: In Switzerland, one of Europe's smallest nations, amendments to the co [#permalink]

10 Aug 2017, 02:41

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