Tax reformer: The proposed tax reform

Answer choices

1. A

   Out of Scope: rare1% picked this

   It is rare for political groups both on the right and on the left to criticize a

   It doesn't make any difference to this argument whether it's rare, common, expected or anywhere in between. The argument is only about this legislation, for which there is criticism from both left and right. It doesn't matter whether that usually happens or whether this is the only time that's happened.

   1%
2. B

   Out of Scope3% picked this

   Even an overly specific or vague tax reform proposal can be implemented in a way

   Out of Scope: beneficial results Opposite: overly specific/vague The argument is only trying to prove that the legislation is framed as it should be. The author hasn't committed herself to any beliefs about the effect of it being implemented. More importantly, our author is not accepting the notion that this legislation is overly specific or overly vague (she thinks those two criticisms show that they actually nailed the sweet spot in how they framed it). So she is never speaking about an overly specific or overly vague tax reform proposal. We have no idea what her position on that sort of tax reform proposal would be. This answer is trying to bait people into hearing the argument as having been, "People criticize this for being too vague or too specific, but we should still implement the law". That sort of sentiment seems to assume that an overly vague or specific law could still have beneficial results worth implementing. But the author never says we should implement the law or suggests that we will be getting beneficial results.

   3%
3. C

   Too Strong5% picked this

   The proposed legislation has not been criticized by any group that does not identify itself with the political

   Too Strong: not criticized by any Only Thing Mentioned ≠ Only Thing This is too strong to derive from her statements. The fact that she only discussed criticism from the left and from the right doesn't mean that we can believe that the only criticism came from the left or from the right. If we negate this and say that "there was also criticism from a group that doesn't identify as left or right", that wouldn't badly weaken the argument.

   5%
4. D

   Out of Scope: intent of framers34% picked this

   The proposed legislation as it is framed was not meant to satisfy either political groups on the right or

   We don't have any insight into what the intent of the people who wrote the legislation was. The only thing we could infer from this paragraph is that the legislation was designed to not be "too vague or too specific", since the author is pleased with the results of the framing based on the fact that the opposite criticisms seem to cancel out. If we negated this answer and said, "This legislation WAS meant to satisfy at least one of the political groups" that wouldn't weaken anything. Someone who writes a bill, hoping to please everyone, will still encounter the old maxim that "you can't please everyone" because someone will always complain about how the bill is written. But the author could be thinking, "since these complaints seem to cancel each other out, it looks like we did as good a job as we could at pleasing everyone".

   34%
5. E

   Correct57% picked this

   The proposed legislation is not made up of a set of statements some of which are overly specific and some

   Why this is right

   Whenever we're doing Necessary Assumption and we see an answer choice that is "ruling out" an idea with the word 'not', we are enticed to come hither and negate it. These are easy to negate, because we just remove the "not", and ask ourselves, "Does the negated version of this answer weaken the argument?" The negated version of this answer would be saying that the proposed tax reform legislation is made up of a set of statements some of which are too specific and some of which are too vague. This hurts the argument, because the author's "premise" that a statement cannot be both too vague and too specific was implying that the criticisms from the left and from the right were invalid, since they canceled each other out. But do they cancel each other out? When we negate this answer, it's reminding the author that "the criticisms might have both been valid, just for separate parts of the legislation". Thus, it gives us a way to argue that the legislation isn't framed as it should be.

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

   57%