Logical Reasoning

PT146 · S3 · Q10 Consultant: If Whalley sticks

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Consultant: If Whalley sticks with her current platform in the upcoming election, then she will lose to her opponent by a few percentage points among voters under 50, while beating him by a bigger percentage among voters 50 and over.

Conclusion (therefore)

Sticking with her current platform will allow Whalley to win the election.

Evidence

If Whalley sticks with her current platform, she'll lose by a few percentage points among under 50 voters, but win by a bigger margin among voters 50 and up.

Evaluate

We need to prove that , and what we know is that .

So the answer needs to convince us that

We're told that she wins the older crowd by a bigger margin than she loses the younger crowd. Does that guarantee an election win?

No, not necessarily. Let's pretend it's an election between W and X, and this is how we expect the voting to go:

voting for W voting for X 50+ 60% 40% under 50 45% 55%

If there were 100 voters under 50 and 100 voters 50 and up, then W would get 105 of the 200 votes, and X would get only 95 votes. So W would win the election.

But, if there are way more young voters than there are older voters, then you'd rather have the edge with younger voters.

vote for W vote for X 50+ 60% 40% (100ppl) 18-49 45% 55% (300ppl)

In this election, W would get 195 of the 400 votes, and X would get 205 votes, so X would win.

Goal

The only way that W can lose the election is if there are more younger voters (under 50) than there are older voters.

If there are an equal number of voters under 50 to those 50 and up, then W wins. If the there are more voters 50 and up than there are under 50, then W wins.

10.

The consultant’s conclusion follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?

  1. There is no change Whalley

    Unrelated to Goal

    We're only concerned with the relative number of under 50 vs. 50+ voters. This answer doesn't resolve whether there are more younger or older voters, so it won't allow us to prove that winning the older voters (by more than she loses the younger voters) will be a winning formula. This conclusion is about sticking with the current platform, so if she made any changes, it would be totally irrelevant to this conclusion.

    5% picked this

  2. The issues that most concern

    Unrelated to Goal

    We're only concerned with the relative number of under 50 vs. 50+ voters. This answer doesn't resolve whether there are more younger or older voters, so it won't allow us to prove that winning the older voters (by more than she loses the younger voters) will be a winning formula.

    2% picked this

  3. If Whalley changes her platform,

    Unrelated to Goal

    This conclusion is about sticking with the current platform, so if she made any changes, it would be totally irrelevant to this conclusion.

    1% picked this

  4. Correct

    There will be more voters

    Why this is right

    We know that if Whalley sticks with her current platform, she'll win the 50+ group of voters by a bigger margin than she loses the under 50 voters. If that 50+ group of voters has more voters in it, then she will definitely end up with more votes. This answer rules out the possibility of our potential objection that there are more younger voters. Consider our chart from before, but with more voters in the 50+ group. vote for W vote for X 50+ 60% 40% (300ppl) 18-49 45% 55% (100ppl) W would get 225 out of the 400 votes, while X gets 175 votes. (Some of us might be bothered that this argument is not actually airtight, because they never told us that "the candidate with more votes wins the election". We might think, "Well, hey, that's just common sense", but the Presidential election in the U.S. is not won by the person with the most votes. That is just a weird feature of this and a couple other Sufficient Assumption questions. Usually, the logic of the correct answer is perfect, but sometimes the test writers are sloppy.)

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

    91% picked this

  5. Whalley would change her platform

    Unrelated to Goal

    This conclusion is about sticking with the current platform, so if she made any changes, it would be totally irrelevant to this conclusion. We need to know the relative size of the group of voters under 50 vs. 50 and up.

    1% picked this

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