Logical Reasoning

PT147 · S1 · Q17 Politician: Over the next decade

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Politician: Over the next decade, our city will be replacing all of its street signs with signs that are designed for improved readability.

Conclusion

Installing the new street signs is a colossal waste of time and money.

Evidence (since)

No one is complaining about the current signs.

Evaluate

We basically treat Evaluate questions like Weaken questions. We try to think of possible objections and then we look for an answer choice that's asking a question that we could answer in a way that would be a potential objection.

Given that ... no one is complaining about the current signs,

How could we argue that ... replacing our current street signs with these more readable signs, over the next ten years, is not a colossal waste of time and money?

Just because no one is complaining about the signs doesn't mean that the new signs wouldn't be perceived as a huge improvement / upgrade. (I wasn't complaining about our old tea kettle, but when my wife bought me a new one that's better for pour-over coffee, I definitely didn't think it was a waste of money.)

The wording of the conclusion is so dramatic, "colossal waste of time and money", that we could also weaken it by speaking to how minimal the outlay of time / money it is.

Maybe these street signs were donated by the local sign factory, and the city didn't have to pay for them at all.

Maybe the new street signs also have solar panels and can save the city some money on its energy bills.

Goal

Look for an answer choice posing a question that could be answered in a way that could weaken.

Think: which of these can be answered in a way that would allow me to argue that installing these new street signs isn't a colossal waste of time and money?

17.

Which one of the following would be most useful to know in evaluating the politician’s argument?

  1. What features of the new

    Unclear Impact

    In order to answer this in a way that would weaken, we would need to think of really cool, desirable features that improve readability, so that we could argue that, "even though no one is complaining about the current signs, when they see these new ones, with the LED lettering and anti-glare glaze on the bulbs, they are going to think this was not a waste of time / money!" It would be hard for us to come with a feature that would have a common sense link of, "If street signs had feature X for enhancing readability, then people would think it worth spending money on that improvement". So it's not easy to think of an answer here that clearly weakens the argument.

    12% picked this

  2. Are the new street signs

    Doesn't Lend Itself to an Objection

    If we say YES to this question, then it would strengthen the argument. But does saying NO to this weaken the argument? If this were a weaken question, would we pick an answer that said, "The new street signs are not considerably more expensive to manufacture than the current street signs were"? No, we wouldn't. It's a very weak objection: It's not a colossal waste of money. After all, the new ones are only somewhat more expensive to make than the old ones were. The author would say, "Right, but the current ones are fine. As I said, no one is complaining about them. So the entire purchase (not just the extra cost above and beyond what the originals cost) is a waste of money."

    22% picked this

  3. Correct

    What percentage of its street

    Why this is right

    We could weaken this argument by saying that, for example, 10% of the street signs are replaced annually in the course of ordinary maintenance. Over the course of a decade (10 years), that means that 100% of the street signs would be replaced anyway, even if we didn't use these new ones. We're already sending a crew out to each sign to take it down and replace it with a new sign. So it might as well be replaced with these new, more readable signs. It's not a colossal waste of time and money to replace all our current signs with these new ones, over the next decade. After all, we replace 10% of them each year no matter what, so over the next decade they're all getting replaced either way. Thus this plan doesn't represent any extra time, and the only extra money would be whatever extra we pay for these new signs vs. buying a new version of the existing signs.

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

    64% picked this

  4. Do any other cities plan

    Doesn't Lend Itself to an Objection

    If this were a weaken question, would it hurt the argument to say, "Other cities plan to replace their street signs with ones that have improved readability"? Not really. It's a very weak objection: It's not a colossal waste of money. After all, other cities are doing it. The author could say, "Right, other cities are dumb and are wasting their time and money. Also, it might be the case that in those cities people are complaining about the current street signs, unlike here."

    1% picked this

  5. Were experts consulted when the

    Doesn't Lend Itself to an Objection

    Can we weaken the argument by saying, It's not a colossal waste of money. After all, experts were consulted when the new street signs were designed. No. The author would just say, "Great, then you wasted time and money hiring these consultants, too."

    1% picked this

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