A politician can neither be reelected nor avoid censure by

Question

A politician can neither be reelected nor avoid censure by his or her colleagues if that politician is known to be involved in any serious scandals. Several prominent politicians have just now been shown to be involved in a conspiracy that turned into a serious scandal. These politicians will therefore not be reelected. If the statements above are all true, which one of the following statements must also be true?

(A) The prominent politicians cannot escape censure by their colleagues.

(B) If there had been no scandal, the prominent politicians would be reelected.

(C) No politician is censured unless he or she is known to be involved in a serious scandal.

(D) The prominent politicians initially benefited from the conspiracy that caused the scandal.

(E) Some politicians who are involved in scandalous conspiracies avoid detection and censure

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

The correct answer choice is (A) The argument begins with a statement that contains two necessary conditions: SS = involved in any serious scandal, sub-P = politician, R = reelected, C = censure, SSP —>~R and ~C. This conditional relationship is introduced by the “if” in the middle of the sentence, but the statement also features a “neither/nor” construction. In this case, the neither/nor indicates that the two named events both cannot occur if a politician is involved in a serious scandal, hence the “and” in the necessary condition. The argument continues by stating that several prominent politicians have been involved in a serious scandal. This assertion begins a Repeat form argument by indicating that the sufficient condition has occurred: SSP. Given this occurrence, the author now concludes that one of the two necessary conditions—“not reelected”—will happen. Because this is true based on the premises, this is a valid conclusion. Some readers object that because the author does not mention censure, the conclusion is incomplete and therefore incorrect. This point has no merit. Any GMAT author can choose what he or she wishes to address, and in this case the author has made a conclusion that follows from the premises. No false or incorrect statement has been made. The author is not compelled to address every single consequence of a given set of premises. However, as soon as the Must Be True questions stem appears, you should immediately search for an answer that addresses the censure issue. Based on the premises, we know that the prominent politicians will also be censured and answer choice (A) indicates that fact.

Answer choice (A): This correct answer is a result of the Repeat argument form enacted in the stimulus.

Answer choice (B): This answer is a Mistaken Negation of part of the conditional statement in the first sentence.

Answer choice (C): This answer is a Mistaken Reversal of part of the conditional statement in the first sentence.

Answer choice (D): This issue is not addressed in the stimulus.

Answer choice (E): While this answer is possibly true because the stimulus limits the discussion to “politicians known to be involved in any serious scandals,” there is no evidence to prove that some politicians avoid detection and censure. Thus, this answer is incorrect.

martie11 · Answer

We are given:
scandal -> not avoid censure
scandal -> not relected
prominent politicians have...been...involved in a...scandal

a) scandal -> not avoid censure (we are told that "prominent politicians have...been...involved in a...scandal", which is how 'scandal' is inferred here)
b) not scandal -> relected
c) scandal -> avoid censure
d) irrelevant
e) irrelevant

Therefore,  A  is the answer. Thanks for the question.

tuanquang269 · Answer

If scandals (X) ,  not avoid censure (Y)   and not reelect (Z)

(A) states correctly the boldface
(B) If not X, then Z => wrong
(C) Y unless X => wrong
(D) wrong
(E) X happen, Y not happen => wrong.

ProleFeed13 · Answer

A is the obvious answer but I'm going to attempt to explain through elimination why this is the case (working backwards)

D and E suffer from the same problem--they reflect information outside the scope of the passage, or put another way, you would need additional statements (premises) to justify such conclusions. For D, there is no discussion of benefits for conspiracies (whether politicians can ever benefit or whether politicians always are initially benefitted prior to the negative fallout). For E, there is no discussion of the consequences of avoiding detection. While it may be true from a common sense perspective, nothing in the passage can support this claim directly, especially in this case where we are concerned about politicians who were caught.

B and C suffer from the same problem--they reflect fallacious reasoning based on assumptions not supported in the passage. For B, it is basically stating "All prominent politicians are reelected UNLESS they are known to be part of a scandal". Nowhere in the passage is there support for this; we are left to believe there can be many reasons why a politician is not re-elected. C is put in the "unless" form which makes it easier to digest, and again, the passage does not support the claim that censure is only a consequence of scandal; there can be many reasons why a politician may be censured.

The main premise is that IF there's a known link to a serious scandal, then politicians are not reelected and censured. (If X, then not Y and Z. We have evidence of the scandal (X), so 2 conclusions follow: no reelections (NOT Y) and definite censure (Z). The passage already contains the NOT Y and choice A is Z. Someone asked why doesn't A "imply" ALL politicians--as with any CR question, you must take all statements at face value; if the choice meant to include all, it would've stated so.

anairamitch1804 · Answer

D and E are out of scope.

Down to A,B,C.

I would go with A

(A) The prominent politicians cannot escape 
censure by their colleagues.

This must be true based on the facts stated in the argument.

If a politician is involved in a scandal 2 things happen:

1) No relection to the position possible 
2) Censured by his/her colleagues.

This choice looks like a parapharse of whats given in the argument so must be true

(B) If there had been no scandal, the prominent 
politicians would be reelected.

This could be true but not must be true

(C) No politician is censured unless he or she is 
known to be involved in a serious scandal.

This could be true but not must be true

gmatexam439 · Answer

I doubt the OA because the first statement itself says explicitly "Serious Scandal" and not just "Scandal". Therefore, it means a politician involved in a small scandal can be reelected while only those involved in "serious" ones can not be reelected. Option "A" clearly doesn't take into account "Serious Scandals".

Also statement is an exaggerated statement because it takes into account " ALL " prominent politicians while the second statement says " several " (which is not equal to all). Also the conclusion says "THESE" that means those prominent politicians which are involved in serious scandals and not ALL.

I seriously doubt OA is correct. Experts please clarify.

GMATNinjaTwo · Answer

gmatexam439 ,

I understand the confusion, but choice A does not say that ALL prominent politicians cannot escape censure by their colleagues; rather, choice A states that " the  prominent politicians cannot escape censure by their colleagues." This refers only to the prominent politicians who "have just now been shown to be involved in a conspiracy that turned into a serious scandal." And since these specific prominent politicians were in fact involved in a  serious  scandal, we can conclude that they will neither be reelected nor avoid censure.

SI777 · Answer

I have got the same question pondering in my head. Can you please clarify if the rule applies to GMAT CR all across ?? I meant the prominent politicians refers to the politicians mentioned in the question stem.

The question stem says "These politicians will not be re-elected." Option Says "they cannot escape censure by their colleagues" . Can we infer this ? I felt option E does the better job.

GMATNinja · Answer

Consider the following example: "Several Germans, Australians, and Americans meet at a hostel in Chile. The Australians are funnier than the Americans." - Does this mean that Australians, in general, are funnier than Americans? Of course not (even though, in this case, it's likely true!)... From the context, we know that the second sentence refers to  specific  Americans and Australians who are meeting at a hostel in Chile, not Americans and Australians in general.

However, if we remove the article "the" before Australians and Americans in the second sentence, we change the meaning: "Several Germans, Australians, and Americans meet at a hostel in Chile. Australians are funnier than Americans." In this case, the second sentence is a general statement about Americans and Australians rather than a statement about the specific Americans and Australians who are meeting at the hostel.

The same applies to this passage. If the author wanted to refer to prominent politicians in general, the article "The" would not have been used: "Prominent politicians cannot escape censure by their colleagues." There is no "rule" to learn here; rather, you have to think about the meaning and significance of the author's word choice.

As for choice (E), we are told that "A politician can neither be reelected nor avoid censure by his or her colleagues if that politician is known to be involved in any serious scandals." So we are given a SUFFICIENT condition: if a politician is known to be involved in  any  serious scandals, then that politician can neither be reelected nor avoid censure by his/her colleagues.

Choice (E) says, "...well, it's possible that a politician can be involved in a scandal and avoid censure." This goes against the sufficient condition given in the passage, unless you make the argument that a "scandalous conspiracy" is not necessarily a "serious scandal." Still, there is certainly not enough information in the passage to definitively conclude that some politicians can avoid detection and avoid censure if they are involved in a scandalous conspiracy. To say that choice (E)  might  be true is a stretch, but we definitely cannot say that it  must  be true.

vishnupandey09 · Answer

How could A be the correct answer . It suggests that all prominent politicians will face censure..
In my opinion C is the right answer

GMATNinja · Answer

Choice (A) does not suggest that ALL prominent politicians will face censure. It only suggests that THE prominent politicians referred to in the passage (those who "have just now been shown to be involved in a conspiracy that turned into a serious scandal") will face censure. The following two posts address this point in detail: https://gmatclub.com/forum/a-politician ... l#p1934957 https://gmatclub.com/forum/a-politician ... l#p1841398

ravigupta2912 · Answer

Got tricked by language in this one :-

I read A as “any prominent politician”, which could obviously not be true. But if the meaning is to refer to the same set of prominent politicians as referred in the para, then, A has to be true.

E - could be or could not be true. We don’t know.

Kicking myself for failing to notice the definitive article “the” in A.

Posted from my mobile device

AlexSgmat · Answer

My answer is A.
However, can someone explain why is C incorrect.

Posted from my mobile device

GMATNinja · Answer

Here's (C):
 
(C) tells us that the ONLY reason that a politician can be censured is if he/she is involved in a serious scandal.

We can't infer this from the passage. There could be tons of other reasons to censure politicians -- maybe they can be censured if their pants are outrageous, or if they speak out of turn in a hearing, or any other reason. We just know that they WILL be censured if they are involved in a serious scandal, not that this is the ONLY cause of censure.

Eliminate (C).

I hope that helps!

VerbalBot · Answer

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A politician can neither be reelected nor avoid censure by

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