Ruth: To become a politician, a person should be required to have a

Question

Ruth: To become a politician, a person should be required to have a diversity of experience. The more diverse one’s experience, the more one will understand the need for compromise.

Stephanie: To be worthy of public trust, it is not enough, as you suggest that one simply have varied experience. Such a person would not necessarily be worthy of public trust.

Which one of the following most accurately describes a flaw in the reasoning in Stephanie’s response to Ruth’s statements?

A) The response simply asserts a point of view opposite to Ruth’s without giving reasons for it
B) The response fails to provide evidence for its assumption that experience is not beneficial to the practice of politics
C) The response attributes to Ruth a view that is more vulnerable to criticism than any she actually expresses
D) The response fails to make a needed distinction between personal experience and relevant professional experience
E) The response fails to provide evidence for its assumption that flexibility is unimportant in the practice of politics

chetan2u · Accepted Answer

A beautiful question which requires you to get the essence of what both say to get to your answer.
Ruth says A is required
Stephanie says A is not enough, as Ruth suggests

Flaw in Stephanie's reasoning is that she has not understood what Ruth implies.

So all choices that tell us that Stephanie is opposite of Ruth are wrong.
Because both say in a way that A is required.

Only C stands as rest all are talking of opposing views

C

Skywalker18 · Answer

Ruth: To become a politician, a person should be required to have a diversity of experience. The more diverse one’s experience, the more one will understand the need for compromise.

Stephanie: To be worthy of public trust, it is not enough, as you suggest that one simply have varied experience. Such a person would not necessarily be worthy of public trust.

Ruth- people should be required to have a diversity of experience in order to be a politician---> diversity of experience is a necessary condition

Stephanie- it is not sufficient to have varied experience

Ruth says 'diversity of experience' should be necessary, and Stephanie's response is to say that it's not sufficient. Furthermore, Ruth is talking about a requirement for being a politician, not about a requirement for meriting public trust. So Stephanie attacks a much broader, and therefore more vulnerable, argument than the one Ruth actually makes.

Which one of the following most accurately describes a flaw in the reasoning in Stephanie’s response to Ruth’s statements?

A) The response simply asserts a point of view opposite to Ruth’s without giving reasons for it - incorrect; Stephanie doesn't actually assert a view opposite to Ruth's; she asserts a view opposite to what she mistakenly thinks Ruth is saying.
B) The response fails to provide evidence for its assumption that experience is not beneficial to the practice of politics- incorrect; Stephanie never says so.
C) The response attributes to Ruth a view that is more vulnerable to criticism than any she actually expresses -Correct
D) The response fails to make a needed distinction between personal experience and relevant professional experience- Out of scope
E) The response fails to provide evidence for its assumption that flexibility is unimportant in the practice of politics- irrelevant- flexibility

HAPPYatHARVARD · Answer

what is wrong with option B. Looks like the right option.

chetan2u · Answer

Hi..

The option B talks of Stephanie's assumption that experience is NOT beneficial to politics..

But is it so?
Stephanie never says NOT beneficial, she says it is not enough alone, you require other things too.

HAPPYatHARVARD · Answer

Hi thanks for replying.
Option B talks about Ruth's failure to understand and talk about Stephanie's assumption that a diversity of experience is a should have quality for politics.
Ruth has mentioned that it is a should have quality of a person trying to enter politics. This means it should be beneficial to politics.

pavle97 · Answer

This is one of the common patterns that are present in reasoning flaw questions. It is called "Straw man" and it represents a situation when an author attempts to attack an opponent's position by ignoring the actual statements made by the opposing speaker and instead distorts the argument, making it weaker in the process. These common patterns can be found in the LSAT Logical Reasoning Powerscore book, and learning them has helped me greatly with this type of qs.

rahul6019 · Answer

This can be best solved by POE. Looking at the both the arguments, looks like Stephanie has not understood Ruth's argument clearly and takes it in a different direction that can be vulnerable to criticism. Only choice C looks correct.

daludada · Answer

The strong candidates for qualifying are A & C.

A simply states that it is opposing the views, but not giving any reasons. OKAY.

But C states that in addition, the statement warrants criticism. The inference of the opposing view can be taken as the person with diversified view cannot enjoy public trust. (Diversification leads to Corruption for example)

So C is correct answer

gandharvm · Answer

pavle97 great comment there. Sharing a short video about The Straw Man Fallacy : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfil34ayaEU

gambit07 · Answer

What R is saying is that having X is required to be a politician. In other words, having X is a necessary condition.

However, when S replies to R, she makes it sound as if R has suggested having X as a sufficient condition, which is clearly not the case.

Hope it helps!

heyu · Answer

I could not understand the question requirement and thus what to look for in answer statement.
Please help.
Thank You

RonTargetTestPrep · Answer

"Stephanie’s response to Ruth’s statements" is the only thing Stephanie says, so, you should just understand that those words refer to the single quote from Stephanie.
So, you can simplify the problem statement to "What does Stephanie do wrong/illogically here?"

AakkashVerbal · Answer

For why A is incorrect

At first glance, A looks right! Right? NO NO NO NO NO! Never make this mistake. In spirit, this may be pointing out the flaw we initially notice - but we don’t concern ourselves with broad meanings here. We are scuba divers. WE DIVE DEEP. We look at the exact words. Answer choice A says “Asserts a POV OPPOSITE to Ruth’s..” Huh?  An opposite POV would be one where Stephanie says that DOE is actually a hallmark of a bad politician. SHE ONLY REFUTES THE NECESSITY OF DOE!

Trap answer choice!

Ruth: To become a politician, a person should be required to have a

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Ruth: To become a politician, a person should be required to have a

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