Historian: The Land Party achieved

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct58% picked this

   In preceding elections the Land Party made no attempt to address the interests of economically

   Why this is right

   We don't really care what happened in preceding elections. If we were told that the Land Party made no attempt to address the interests of urban groups in this election, then we might consider that Ruling Out the Alternate Explanation that they won in 1935 not because they appealed to rural / semirural voters but because they appealed to urban voters. But this isn't giving us any information about the 1935 election.

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

   58%
2. B

   Strengthens4% picked this

   Voters are more likely to vote for a political party that focuses

   This boosts the plausibility of the Author's Explanation by connecting "addressing certain groups' concerns" with "winning an election".

   4%
3. C

   Strengthens13% picked this

   The Land Party had most of its successes when there was economic distress in

   This boosts the plausibility of the Author's Explanation that the Land Party's success in 1935 was due in part to the economic distress of people in the agricultural sector, by providing more data points that show "When Cause was Present, Effect was Present". Most of the time the Land Party wins, the agricultural sector is in economic distress, so it strengthens the idea that those two things are causally connected (correlations lend plausibility to a causal connection; they just don't outright prove one).

   13%
4. D

   Strengthens10% picked this

   No other major party in Banestria specifically addressed the issues of people who lived in

   This strengthens the correlation between addressing the issues of people who lived in semirural areas and winning the election. It adds plausibility in the most typical way on Strengthen: No Cause, No Effect. The other major parties didn't address the issues of the semirural people, and they didn't win the election. Or said a different way, if the other major parties were ALSO addressing the issues of semirural people, then it wouldn't make sense to point to that as the causal difference-maker for why the Land Party won the election.

   10%
5. E

   Strengthens15% picked this

   The greater the degree of economic distress someone is in, the more likely that person

   This boosts the plausibility of the author's explanation by making it seem like these rural and semirural people actually voted. We know they were economically hurting, and we know that the Land Party specifically addressed their concerns, but if those people don't show up to vote (if most votes come from urban voters) then the author's explanation wouldn't make sense. This answer helps to affirm that most votes came from people in the rural / semirural areas. The bulk of the population lived there at the time, and they would have been the people most likely to vote, given their economic distress.

   15%