A senator, near the end of his first six-year term and running for

Question

A senator, near the end of his first six-year term and running for reelection, made the claim: "Citizens of our state are thriving. While national unemployment levels have remained high, our state unemployment rate has been at astonishingly low levels for eleven years running. Clearly, everyone in our state has benefitted from the economical packages I have introduced during my time in the Senate. Therefore, grateful citizens of our state ought to vote for my second term."

This argument is most vulnerable to what criticism?

(A) It takes a condition to be the effect of something that has happened only after the condition already existed.

(B) It introduces several different types of evidence, not all of which are compatible with one another.

(C) It conflates political conditions with economic conditions.

(D) The economical packages introduced by the senator may not have been as beneficial to citizens of other states.

(E) Even if what the senator is saying is true, it may not be in his self-interest to argue in favor of it.

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Samiun · Answer

IMO A . The clue is that the senator says it has been eleven years since the unemployment rate was low. But the senator has been in power for the last 6 years.

dkpkoti · Answer

Here the senator is making a causal relationship between the economic package he introduced and the low state unemployment rate. Although He is in term for last 6 years, the unemployment levels have been low for eleven years running. that means there can be other factors responsible for it. hence the conclusion - grateful citizens of our state ought to vote for my second term. might not hold true.

Option A- ✅
Option B - is incorrect as only one evidence has been produced to support the claim.
Option C - Irrelevant.
Option D- here we are not concerned with the benefits to other sattes.
Option E - Irrelevant to the conclusion made.

Option A- ✅ 
Option B - is incorrect as only one evidence has been produced to support the claim.
Option C - Irrelevant.
Option D- here we are not concerned with the benefits to other sattes.
Option E - Irrelevant to the conclusion made.

miag · Answer

A by POE

B) - there are no several evidence types introduced 
C) - no such case presented
D) - we dont know if it was beneficial to other states, no info given on this
E) - his intention is not relevant here. we are only concerned with why he shouldnt use decrease in unemployment as a basis to say that he should get re-elected

Bunuel · Answer

Official Explanation

The senator takes credit for the low unemployment levels, but these have been ongoing for 11 years, and he has been in office only six years. He seems to take credit for something that occurred before he was in office. The essential problem in this argument is the time sequence.

(A) is the credited response. The senator's argument says that the condition (low unemployment in the state) is the effect of his economic packages, but the condition existed before he ever had the chance to introduce those packages. That is the major flaw of this argument.

(B) is wrong. There aren't different kinds of evidence: everything is a claim of the senator.

(C) is wrong. What causes low unemployment is an economic argument; in taking credit for the economic benefit, he urges votes to vote for him --- a standard way of claiming political credit. Nevertheless, there is no confusion between what is economic and what is political.

(D) is irrelevant. The senator is talking to folks in his own state, the folks who have the power to re-elect him. How folks in other states feel does not matter to this argument.

(E) is wrong. If the senator truly were responsible for eleven years of low unemployment, it would most certainly be in his interest to make this argument.

VerbalBot · Answer

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