Lucien: Public-housing advocates claim that the many homeless people

L : L disagrees with the PA's claim that the many homeless people in the city shows there is insufficient low income housing. His reasoning is that His building, as well as that of his friends, has many empty flats.
L's Conclusion : Homelessness is not a housing problem
L's Conclusion - homelessness is caused by people's inability or unwillingness to work and pay rent.

M : Significant % hold regular job so the issue is not ability or will.


A - Maria is not attacking L's personal experience, but his assumption behind his conclusion. OUT.
B - Maria is attacking L's assumption that homeless is caused only because of people's inability or unwillingness to work and pay rent.
C - No motives are questioned. OUT.
D - She isn't demonstrating that his evidence supports another conclusion, but is providing evidence that is questioning his assumption.
E - Nope. OUT.

B is the answer.

Many apartments in my own building remain unrented and my professional colleagues report similar vacancies where they live. Since apartments clearly are available,
homelessness is not a housing problem. Homelessness can, therefore, only be caused by people’s inability or unwillingness to work to pay the rent.

Maria: On the contrary, all recent studies show that a significant percentage of this city’s homeless people hold regular jobs. These are people who lack neither will nor ability.

L's experience is that a lot of the apartments across the city are empty.
L's conclusion is that homelessness is caused by people's inability, or unwillingness to work and pay rent.

M is citing evidence to state, to the contrary, that the homeless in fact hold regular jobs so homelessness is not caused by their unwillingness, or their ability to work and pay rent.
'A' says Maria is challenging the accuracy of his personal experience, but Maria isn't doing that at all.

Hope this helps.

"lack neither" - Double negative is so annoying. It took me a while to realize the counter-argument of Maria.
(A) challenging the accuracy of the personal experiences he offers in support of his position -> wrong
(B) showing that a presupposition of his argument is false
(C) presenting evidence that calls into question his motives for adopting the view he holds
(D) demonstrating that the evidence he offers supports a conclusion other than the conclusion he draws from it
(E) offering an alternative explanation for the facts he cites as evidence supporting his conclusion

Summary of stem -
Lucien - Based on his observation claims homelessness is result of inability and unwillingness.
Maria - Refers to some studies claiming otherwise

Run down to each option -
(A) challenging the accuracy of the personal experiences he offers in support of his position
Maria didn't talk on the same line as Lucien so she is not challenging his personal experience here
(B) showing that a presupposition of his argument is false
Maria claims that his assumption is wrong about homelessness. so Correct answer.
(C) presenting evidence that calls into question his motives for adopting the view he holds
No mention of motives.
(D) demonstrating that the evidence he offers supports a conclusion other than the conclusion he draws from it
No, she didn't talk about empty apartments so out.
(E) offering an alternative explanation for the facts he cites as evidence supporting his conclusion
Again no mention of house occupancy so eliminate.

Hello May someone explain how you approach these types of questions? Do you actually deconstruct the argument by writing down the Premises and structure until conclusion?
I try not to take notes to avoid wasting time but I get quite a few wrong, is this a good approach?

Lucien: Public-housing advocates claim that the many homeless people in this city are proof that there is insufficient housing available to them and therefore that more low-income apartments are needed. But that conclusion is absurd. Many apartments in my own building remain unrented and my professional colleagues report similar vacancies where they live. Since apartments clearly are available, homelessness is not a housing problem. Homelessness can, therefore, only be caused by people’s inability or unwillingness to work to pay the rent.

Maria: On the contrary, all recent studies show that a significant percentage of this city’s homeless people hold regular jobs. These are people who lack neither will nor ability.

Maria responds to Lucien’s argument by

(A) challenging the accuracy of the personal experiences he offers in support of his position - WRONG. Both challenging and accuracy are not what we are concerned off.
(B) showing that a presupposition of his argument is false - CORRECT. Conclusion is attacked thus the presupposition is attacked.
(C) presenting evidence that calls into question his motives for adopting the view he holds - WRONG. Not question but presenting a different fact that's opposite to basis on which conclusion was offered.
(D) demonstrating that the evidence he offers supports a conclusion other than the conclusion he draws from it - WRONG. The best after right choice. - WRONG. Conclusion!! what conclusion. We are not sure which conclusion it could be. But nowhere Maria suggests that a different conclusion can be reached out.
(E) offering an alternative explanation for the facts he cites as evidence supporting his conclusion - WRONG. Not alternative but opposite evidence.

Answer B.