Among multiparty democracies, those with the fewest parties will have

Question

Among multiparty democracies, those with the fewest parties will have the most-productive legislatures. The fewer the number of parties in a democracy, the more issues each must take a stand on. A political party that must take stands on a wide variety of issues has to prioritize those issues; this promotes a tendency to compromise.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the argument?

(A) The more political parties a nation has, the more likely it is that there will be disagreements within parties.

(B) The fewer the number of a nation’s political parties, the more important it is that those parties can compromise with each other.

(C) The tendency to compromise makes the legislative process more productive.

(D) The legislatures of nondemocracies are less productive than are those of democracies.

(E) Legislators in a multiparty democracy never all agree on important issues.

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

EXPLANATION FROM POWER SCORE

The author presents the conclusion of this stimulus in the first sentence:

Multiparty democracies with fewest parties have the most productive legislatures.

This conclusion is based on the following premises:

Premise 1: The fewer the parties, the more issues each must take a stand on.

Premise 2: A wide variety of issues forces prioritization.

Premise 3: Prioritization promotes a tendency to compromise.

The above premises can be diagrammed as follows:

Fewer parties --> more issues --> prioritization --> compromise

In order to draw the conclusion presented in the stimulus, the author must believe that compromise is tied to productivity. In responding to this supporter assumption question, we should therefore look for the answer choice which allows for the following conditional statement:

Fewer parties --> more issues --> prioritization --> compromise --> productivity

Thus we can prephrase the answer to this supporter assumption question.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice.  We must somehow link productivity with one of the sufficient conditions to the left in the diagram above. Correct answer choice (C) achieves exactly this, by linking compromise to productivity:

compromise --> productivity

Answer choices (A) and (B) are incorrect because the stimulus doesn’t deal with disagreements within parties, or with the importance of compromise. Answer choices (D) and (E) are also incorrect, because the author never mentions nondemocracies, or whether or not legislators ever all agree.

Bunuel · Answer

EXPLANATION FROM Fox LSAT

I hate the two-party system. The only worse system, in my view, would probably be a one-party system. This argument doesn’t address one-party systems, but it claims that a two-party system would be better than a three-party system, a three-party system is better than a four-party system, etcetera. The conclusion is the first sentence: “Among multiparty democracies, those with the fewest parties will have the most-productive legislatures.” I know this because the rest of the argument attempts to support this conclusion.

The evidence goes like this: 1) The fewer parties there are, the more issues each party must take a stance on. 2) Taking a stand on issues requires prioritization of issues. 3) Prioritization of issues promotes a tendency to compromise. Therefore, says the author, the fewer parties you have, the more productive your legislature will be.

I don’t agree with any of this. I don’t think taking a stance on an issue promotes compromise…. just look at Washington. However, that was a premise of the argument, not an assumption. Since it’s a premise, we can’t argue with it. If we accept that taking a stance on an issue promotes compromise, then the biggest hole in the argument seems to be between the last step and the conclusion. Compromise leads to productivity.  Who says?  This seems like a reasonable assumption, but it’s an assumption nonetheless. If it’s not true, the argument would fail. If that’s in the answer choices, then it’s the correct answer.

A) The author doesn’t talk about how many disagreements happen in the first place. The author only says that taking a stance leads to compromise. I don’t think “disagreements” can possibly be involved in a necessary assumption. I’m looking for something better.

B) “More important”? The author never says what’s important and what’s not important. I don’t think so.

C) This is exactly what we’re looking for. Let’s scan D and E just to be sure.

D) The argument is not about nondemocracies. No way.

E) This is way too absolute. The author didn’t claim (explicitly or implicitly) that legislators in multiparty democracies can never all agree.

The best answer is C.

tkorzhan1995 · Answer

GMATNinja , Bunuel,

(A) The more political parties a nation has, the more likely it is that there will be disagreements within parties.

(B) The fewer the number of a nation’s political parties, the more important it is that those parties can compromise with each other. - Correct
Negate assumption: 
The higher the number of political parties, the less important is to compromise that parties should compromise with each other. It contradicts conclusion that tendency to compromise makes parties more productive. For higher number of political parties, it is more important to compromise to be more productive.

(C) The tendency to compromise makes the legislative process more productive.

(D) The legislatures of nondemocracies are less productive than are those of democracies.

(E) Legislators in a multiparty democracy never all agree on important issues.

SaiPavanR · Answer

logic:
logic1 -> Fewer parties => Increase in productivity of legislature(PL)
logic2 -> Fewer parties => More issues to stand on => Prioritise the issues => Compromise
Using these logics, the author is concluding that fewer parties leads to productivity, leaving the logic2 loose.

Hence we need to connect the gap that is left by the author in logic2, the final step. Compromise => Increases PL

Option C fills this gap

hence C is right

NCC · Answer

Argument = Less parties, more productive.
But, less parties, more issues, more opinions(stand) therefore need to prioritize. This leads to compromise.

Conclusion = "tendency to compromise'' definitely important for more productive

A - not necessarily true. We are only given details of instances when Pol Parties are fewer.

B - contender

C - contender

D - not given and not talked about. Out of Scope

E - "never" - negation - "always"; such extreme words are best avoided
And even if they agree on all things, agreeing still qualifies as taking a stand.

B v/s C

Negating C completely breaks Conclusion
B - more important to compromise? we are given about tendency to compromise

Hence, Ans is C
Please validate

GMATNinja · Answer

Let's start by identifying both the conclusion and the overall structure of the passage.

In the first sentence, the author concludes that among multiparty democracies, "those with the  fewest parties  will have the  most-productive legislatures ." To support this conclusion, the author states that "the fewer the number of parties in a democracy, the more issues each must take a stand on." And finally, this creates a need to prioritize issues, which in turn promotes a " tendency to compromise ."

To identify an "assumption required by the argument," we need to find something that strengthens the argument, and that is necessary for the argument to hold.

Let's consider (B):

This answer choice is saying that when a nation has fewer political parties, it is "more important that those parties can compromise with each other." So in other words, the fewer the number of political parties, the more important is is that they can compromise.

But the argument isn't talking about when it's "important" that political parties "can compromise with each other." The argument just concludes that multiparty democracies with the  fewest parties  will have the  most productive legislatures . And that's because those democracies with the fewest parties will have a  tendency to compromise . So it isn't claiming that when there are "fewer" parties, it's  more important  that they can compromise. It's just claiming that when there are fewer parties, they will have a  tendency  to compromise (and thus be more productive). So (B) is out.

One quick point about negation -- unfortunately, this technique frequently fails because it's often difficult to know how exactly to negate a sentence. In this case, should we change "fewer" to "higher"? "More" to "less"? Should we change both? It's difficult to say which of these is the best negation, so negation isn't a great way to deal with this question (or with assumption questions in general). Instead, it's best to simply ask if the statement itself is both supportive and necessary.

Let's consider (C):

The argument claims that when there are  fewer parties , legislatures will be  more productive . And this is because when there are fewer parties, they will have a  tendency to compromise . But how do we know that a tendency to compromise causes legislatures to be more productive? Maybe compromise doesn't affect productivity at all? Or maybe the legislative process is most productive when one group dominates the other, and there is  no  compromise?

So for the argument to hold, it's necessary to assume that the tendency to compromise makes the legislative process more productive, because otherwise the argument falls apart, and (C) is correct.

I hope that helps!

unraveled · Answer

Among multiparty democracies, those with the fewest parties will have the most-productive legislatures. The fewer the number of parties in a democracy, the more issues each must take a stand on. A political party that must take stands on a wide variety of issues has to prioritize those issues; this promotes a tendency to compromise.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the argument?

(A) The  more political parties  a nation has, the more likely it is that  there will be disagreements  within parties. - WRONG. Like E only.

(B) The fewer the number of a nation’s political parties, the more important it is that those parties can  compromise with each other . - WRONG. Questionable as in compromising with each other leads to productivness.

(C) The tendency to compromise makes the legislative process more productive. - CORRECT. Exactly the relationship between two contradicting aspects that we are looking for.

(D) The legislatures of  nondemocracies  are less productive than are those of democracies. - WRONG. Irrelevant.

(E) Legislators in a multiparty democracy  never all agree  on important issues. - WRONG. Creates more confusion.

This could have been a discrepancy question wherein the right option sorts out the perplexing situation of the passage. So, the two contradicting parts are few parties and tendency to compromise. One which amalgamates the two to most-productive legislatures is our answer.

Answer C.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Among multiparty democracies, those with the fewest parties will have

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