Bunuel wrote:
The town council of North Tarrytown favored changing the name of the town to Sleepy Hollow. Council members argued that making the town's association with Washington Irving and his famous “legend” more obvious would increase tourism and result immediately in financial benefits for the town's inhabitants.
The council members' argument requires the assumption that
A. most of the inhabitants would favor a change in the name of the town
B. many inhabitants would be ready to supply tourists with information about Washington Irving and his “legend”
C. the town can accomplish, at a very low cost per capita, the improvements in tourist facilities that an increase in tourism would require
D. other towns in the region have changed their names to reflect historical associations and have, as a result, experienced a rise in tourism
E. the immediate per capita cost to inhabitants of changing the name of the town would be less than the immediate per capita revenue they would receive from the change
CR12661.01
Verbal Review 2020 NEW QUESTION
With Critical Reasoning, we'll want to start by reading the question so that we can identify how we're being tested. In this case, we have an assumption question, so we're looking for the answer choice that must be true to connect the dots between evidence and conclusion.
If council members argue that changing the name would result in immediate financial benefits for the town's inhabitants, we want the answer that - if false - would completely deteriorate the logic of the argument.
A. most of the inhabitants would favor a change in the name of the town <- In this case, it doesn't really matter to us how the inhabitants feel about the change, we're arguing that the change, if implemented, would yield immediate financial benefits. Could be true, could be false, not an assumption.
B. many inhabitants would be ready to supply tourists with information about Washington Irving and his “legend” <- Again, could be true or false, so it's not an assumption.
C. the town can accomplish, at a very low cost per capita, the improvements in tourist facilities that an increase in tourism would require <- Whether they are at capacity to make inexpensive improvements doesn't make or break our argument. This could still be false and, in a number of ways, the argument could still hold true.
D. other towns in the region have changed their names to reflect historical associations and have, as a result, experienced a rise in tourism <- This is a common trap answer that doesn't make or break our argument. Whether or not this has been successful for other towns does not have to be the case for this particular instance to work.
E. the immediate per capita cost to inhabitants of changing the name of the town would be less than the immediate per capita revenue they would receive from the change <- Here we are! If this were untrue, or if "the immediate per capita cost to inhabitants of changing the name of the town would
not be less than the immediate per capita revenue they would receive from the change," this completely destroys our argument, as we need revenue to outweigh costs to inhabitants in order to conclude that the change would yield "immediate financial benefits." E is our answer.
Assumption negation, and testing answers to the statement "does this have to be true for the argument to be valid" will aid us in using process of elimination to arrive at the correct answer and weed out convincing wrong answers that may strengthen, or impact the argument otherwise, but don't
have to be true for the argument to be valid.
Hope this helps!