Logical Reasoning

PT1 · S4 · Q13 The press reports on political campaigns

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The press reports on political campaigns these days as if they were chess games.

Conclusion (it is clear that)

Campaign advisors should stay out of the limelight so that the press can report on the most revealing positions on substantive issues the candidates have taken.

Evidence

The press currently treats campaigns like chess matches between advisors, ignoring substantive policy issues. Voters lose because they need substantive information to make informed decisions but are getting only process coverage.

Evaluate

Because the conclusion is a recommendation ("should"), we could articulate a Missing Idea by citing the missing "should" rule that gets the author to her conclusion.

Reporting on the chess game rather than the substantive policy issues is . Since our author is saying that the press should stop reporting on the chess game rather than substantive policy issues, she's assuming that .

If we wanted to go down the road of thinking of Potential Objections, we might react to the wording .

Who said the advisors were in any way pressuring the press to report on them rather than on substantive issues. The author's conclusion makes it sound like advisors are intentionally seeking press coverage, but it's possible the press just chooses to cover the campaign because it gets more clicks than covering the issues does.

Goal

It's hard to know what to predict here. Maybe it'll be testing a missing "should" rule. Maybe it will be ruling out some sort of objection.

13.

Which one of the following is an assumption upon which the argument in the passage depends?

  1. Chess is the most appropriate

    Out of Scope

    The author uses the chess analogy as an illustration but never implies it's the most appropriate one. She thinks it is an appropriate metaphor. If it were the 2nd most appropriate metaphor, that wouldn't weaken the argument in any way.

    1% picked this

  2. Correct

    The candidates in the election

    Why this is right

    This is a bare bones idea the argument needs to be plausible. In order for the author to argue that the press should stop covering campaign advisors and instead report on the most revealing positions taken by candidates on substantive issues, then the author must be assuming that such positions exist. It's nonsense to tell someone, "Instead of grabbing chips from the pantry, you should grab some granola", if there's no granola in the pantry.

    Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    69% picked this

  3. How the press reports politics

    Bad Assumption

    The argument is only saying that how the press reports influences whether voters have the information they need to make informed decisions. It never suggests that what they report actually determines the positions that candidates hold.

    15% picked this

  4. The voters are not paying

    Bad Assumption

    The argument complains that voters are not given the information they need by the press, not that voters are inattentive. The author could freely agree that voters are paying enough attention, but still be saying that they will not be able to make informed decisions because the press is covering the wrong stuff.

    12% picked this

  5. There is no difference between

    Bad Assumption

    The argument explicitly distinguishes between reporting on the process (advisors, chess moves) and reporting on substantive issues; that distinction is the whole point of the complaint. So the author cannot be assuming there is no difference between them; she believes the opposite. She thinks they ARE different and that the media should switch from doing one of them to doing the other one.

    4% picked this

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