When governments subsidize certain industries, the business owners and

I think the answer should be B
A: Even if the voters are well informed or not, it doesn't culminate to actual votes. There may be other factors affecting the judgment of the voters.
B: If those who support subsidies are more likely to vote than are those who oppose subsidies, then the politician opposing the subsidies will lose. Hence the negation of argument weakens the conclusion. Therefore, it may be the solution.
C: Directly or indirectly is not the crust of the argument. Hence it can be eliminated. Again this option is bit extreme.
D: Very close. IF B is incorrect then D is definitely the answer. The problem is that the tone is extreme because it speaks about only one strategy and ignores the others that may exist
E: clearly out of scope.

Imo C

B IF we negate B then it is clear that folks who support subsidies are more likely to vote than those who do not support subsidies . Here is the catch we do not the absolute numbers so we can not say which group will have more number of votes so we can not decide .

C on the other hand is more direct . Folks oppose subsidies because of the reduced tax dollars they do not get good policies .If we negate C the argument falls apart as folks are now impartial to the subsidies.

Hey Bunuel,

But isn't C out of scope? What relation does motivation has with voting for candidates? For instance:- X is motivated but does it guarantee that X is going to cast his vote?

I think only A and C are contenders. Here, A says that ELECTED representative's stand, but the stimulus is talking about the politicians who are contending the elections i.e. not yet elected.

SO, Answer boils down only to C.

Can you please post the OA.

Imo b is correct.
Although c also has no issue to be answer but it is more general than specific to subject imo.

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Correct Answer- B

B) Those who support subsidies are not significantly more likely to vote than are those who oppose subsidies.
If we negate this option, the argument falls apart.

Let's do the negation test:

Conclusion: " political candidates would increase their likelihood of being elected if they oppose such subsidies" - If Political candidates oppose subsidies, then they will increase their likelihood of being elected.

Negated option B- Those who support subsidies are significantly more likely to vote than are those who oppose subsidies.
If people who support subsidies are more likely to vote than are those who oppose subsidies, then the Political candidate who is opposing the subsidies can't be elected.

Therefore, Option B is the correct answer.

C) Voters are only motivated by the way that policies directly impact themselves personally.
Option C is talking about voter's motivation.Motivation doesn't guarantee a vote from voters.
Rule-out

Great options! Very subtle and tricky as hell.


What if people who oppose such subsidies are not eligible to vote and those who favor the subsidies are the only eligible voters?
So even if the candidate opposes the subsidies, he will not get any vote. He will not win in that case.
B eliminates such cases and hence, is required to be assumed.

--B--

For the C- contenders, consider the negated version:

Voters are not solely motivated by the way that policies directly impact themselves personally.
Fine, the voters are also motivated by economic impacts. What if voters are 2% motivated by economic impacts and 98% motivated by personal impacts? The conclusion still holds , when we are expecting it to fall apart on negation of this option.
C is weakened by the word 'ONLY' here.

Question Type: Assumption

Argument: Political candidates would increase their likelihood of being elected if they oppose such subsidies

A. Most voters are well-informed about their elected representatives’ positions on subsidies. - Negate: Most voters are not well informed about their elected representatives’ positions on subsidies. But even if 40% of the voters are well informed, it will increase the candidates likelihood of winning. The conclusion is about the chances of winning. So, this option doesn't destroy the conclusion when negated.

B. Those who support subsidies are not significantly more likely to vote than are those who oppose subsidies. - Correct. Negate B: Those who support subsidies are significantly more likely to vote than are those who oppose subsidies. This will not increase the candidates likelihood of winning as voters who oppose subsidies are less likely to vote.

C. Voters are only motivated by the way that policies directly impact themselves personally. - Even if they are motivated by policies that impact other aspects, this policy may have an indirect impact on those aspects too.

D. Political candidates should only support policies that increase their likelihood of being elected. - Out of focus. Doesn't talk about the voters impact on the candidates' chances of winning.

E. Subsidies specific to a particular industry do not stimulate the economy enough to benefit employees in other industries. - Irrelevant.

Answer: B

VERITAS PREP OFFICIAL SOLUTION:

As you assess the argument here looking for gaps in logic, you should see that the main premise in the argument is "in polling, most people find subsidies unfavorable" and the conclusion is that "politicians would therefore be more likely to win if they oppose subsidies." This leaves a pretty large gap: does seeing this one issue as unfavorable mean that most people would actually go and vote for a candidate who opposes that issue?

Anticipate some possible weaknesses in that logic:

-maybe it's an issue most people don't care about very much so it's not a good indicator of how they'll vote

-maybe the people who support subsidies passionately support them and will be sure to vote while those opposed are more apathetic and probably won't vote

However you look at it, recognize that the gap exists between how this particular issue polls and how that will impact votes.

For this reason, choice (B) is correct. If you hold it up to the Assumption Negation Technique, you get: those who support the subsidies are significantly more likely to vote." If this were true, that would cripple the given argument - the only evidence the argument has is that "most people find subsidies unfavorable" but if polling is not a good indication of who will go and vote, that premise loses its predictive power. As anticipated above, (B) suggests a direct impediment between "polling" and "voting."

Among the incorrect answer choices, (C) and (E) are wrong for essentially the same reason: they each suggest reasons that people might actually prefer the subsidies (in (C) it's "what if they themselves don't benefit but they like what the subsidies do for their neighbors" and in (E) it's "maybe the subsidies actually do benefit most people, after all, if you let them play out"). But in each case the rebuttal is "but the polls already say that they're against subsidies." We have hard evidence in the stimulus that those considerations don't matter: people are against them.

(A) can be rebutted the same way. Even if people aren't well-informed about the issues, they've indicated that they're against the issue (and in real life, who hasn't met someone who's poorly-informed but heavily convicted about an issue?).

Choice (D) is there as a trap for those who tend to hijack the conclusion. Remember: the conclusion only talks about the probability (politicians would be more likely to win) and not what politicians ought to do. Choice (D) deals with what politicians should or shouldn't do, but that doesn't impact the specific conclusion at all, so (D) is incorrect.

Hi experts please help me to fill the gap in my understanding

IM0 A is correct answers

As OA B states that ppl who support subsidy are not more likely to vote than who oppose

let's negate this: let say supporting grp is 60% more likely to vote than opposing grp and their proportion in population is only 10% ( as mentioned in the stem that ' polling indicates most ppl oppose subsidies') and opposing is 40% likely to vote

now, even though 90% supporting grp would casted their vote still it supports the conclusion

Thanks in advance

you are trying too hard to make your point... It seems as if you dont want the answer to be B.
nevertheless, ill try my best to explain you..

When governments subsidize certain industries, the business owners and employees of those industries benefit but the majority of consumers pay more for those products and find that there are fewer of their tax dollars available for policies they prefer. Unsurprisingly, polling indicates that most people see industry-specific subsidies as unfavorable. Consequently, political candidates would increase their likelihood of being elected if they oppose such subsidies.

understand :
fact : subsidy - benefit business owners and emps - hurt consumers ...why ?? because what consumers prefer dont get enough share of the revenue.
fact - polling results - industry specific subsidies unfavourable -
Conclusion - politician (WHO WANTS TO INCREASE HIS LIKELIHOOD OF BEING ELECTED - HE IS NOT YET ELECTED ...HE WANTS TO GET ELECTED ) should appose industry sppecific subsidy.

now why does author suggest the politician that?? certainly he must conclsude this by reckoning something from the polling stats ..
author assumes - 1) the polling data is representative of the entire population ..
2) note that this is just a poll and not actual election ..so there is still chance that the people who find X unfavourable they might still vote FOR SOMEONE ELSE... so author assumes that the ppl will not cahnge their poll view

The argument above assumes which of the following?


A. Most voters are well-informed about their elected representatives’ positions on subsidies.-
if you would have presneted your reasoning for A , it would have been easier to explain with respect to your reasoning...
read carefully , most voter are well informed about their ELECTED (already elected ... this is totally different case... they are already ELECTED...past tense..elections are done...)
lets negate A - ,most voter are not well informed about their elected represnetatives positions on subsidies !! so this might imply that ppl either knew about the positions of elected before elections or AFTER elections... so this does not break conclusion
even if we consider ppl knew before the elections , there is still possibilty that the past trend may not hold ...ppl in our case may or may not know the positions...

B. Those who support subsidies are not significantly more likely to vote than are those who oppose subsidies
- I'll use your analogy
if you take numbers in this case there willbe many cases
for eg : population of supporters is less
population of supporters is more
population of supporters is equal
what about the population who have no stand !!!
and many more..

the conclusion wants us to increase the LIKELYHOOD ... author never says HE WILL GET ELECTED.... so B is true

B. Those who support subsidies are not significantly more likely to vote than are those who oppose subsidies.

if you wanna get Most Votes ...make sure you understand the real number of votes

if most of people (P1)who support subsidies vote ...and only a small percentage of people (P2)who are against subsidies vote.. It's possible that P1 is larger P2

to make the argument valid ,we need to eliminate the possibility

Hi Gladiator59 I eliminated B in this one as I thought :

let say supporting is 60% more likely to vote than opposing grp and their proportion in population is only 10% ( as mentioned in the stem that ' polling indicates most ppl oppose subsidies') and opposing group is 40% likely to vote

The conclusion still stands dont it ?


Please guide.


Regards

Conclusion - political candidates would increase their likelihood of being elected if they oppose such subsidies.

So the correct assumption should weaken (or rather destroy) this claim when negated.

A- negate it. A lot of people do not know the stance of politicians. Does not weaken, let alone destroy, the election will be fair game for anyone in this case

B - perfect. So people consciously supporting the subsidy are voting in larger proportion. This would definitely work against the politician who goes against subsidy

C- voters are "only motivated" by something something... Negating it doesn't work as we don't know how the only factor works. Clearly does not show a two way street.

Hence (B) wins.

Hope it's clear.



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Hi, thank you for responding.
I cannot still grasp the quant factor that I have illsutrated above. By a reread and after POE I got to B as well. Yet, I am not very confident with the quant part of B.

I chose C but while using the Negation technique, I was completely sold on B.
By negating C, we get : Voters are not only motivated by the way that policies directly impact themselves personally

If voters not *only* are motivated by policies that have direct impact, they could be partially motivated by these factors or not motivated at all. They could be 99% motivated(which is still partial) and it would do well for politicians to value this motivation.

For this option to work, the statement when negated should say that voters are 0% motivated by policies that impact them. But, this statement can't be solely inferred.

Now, if we negate option B, we get , "Those who support subsidies are significantly more likely to vote than are those who oppose subsidies." The keyword here is significantly. Since these people are significantly more likely to vote, politicians should re-consider their approach in getting more votes as the suggested method will not have the intended effect.

Hope this makes sense.

The problem with B is that if we negate it, it just weakens the argument (as others have pointed out.). But, we need to remember what assumption really is. It is required for the argument to hold true. So, if we negate an assumption, it should destroy the argument and not merely weaken it.