Quote:
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 percent of the projects canceled were in such districts. But all of the canceled 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?
(B) The scheduled highway projects identified as wasteful in the report were not mostly projects in districts controlled by the President’s party.
(D) The highway projects canceled in districts controlled by the President’s party were not generally more expensive than the projects canceled in districts controlled by opposition parties.
(E) Reports by nonpartisan auditors are not generally regarded by the opposition parties as a source of objective assessments of government projects.
Conclusion: So the President’s choice was clearly motivated by sound budgetary policy, not partisan politics.
When I negate B , D and E. All seems to strengthen the conclusion after conclusion.
Question1:
Negate of D: The highway projects canceled in districts controlled by the President’s party were generally more expensive than the projects canceled in districts controlled by opposition parties.
So if projects in districts controlled by president party’s were generally more expensive and these projects were cancelled .In other words, Because If these projects were expensive then it makes sense to cancel these projects, it means they were motivated by budgetary policy.
But it has still some gaps,
We are not sure what about projects that were of same value. What If these projects were not scrapped then it maybe possible that the motivation is based on partisan politics instead of budgetary policy. We are not sure . It doesn’t destoy the conclusion completely. So D can not be necessary condition, hence D can not be an assumption?
Quetion2: How negate of B makes the conclusion weak?
Negate of B says:
The scheduled highway projects identified as wasteful in the report were mostly projects in districts controlled by the President’s party.
Most wasteful projects are from districts controlled by president party so it means that the decision was taken DEFINITELY based on budgetary policy. Hence it doesn’t break the conclusion AT ALL, Is not it? Then why B is answer?
Question3:
Negate of E, as you mentioned in above post, strengthen the conclusion..
Reports by nonpartisan auditors are generally regarded by the opposition parties as a source of objective assessments of government projects.
Negate of both B and E strengthens the conclusion, but at least D has some gap for weakening the conclusion( doubtful as no information is given), So I choose D
Please correct me.
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