Enrique: The city's transit authority

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct92% picked this

   the transit authority should continue operating without cutting service or increasing fares until it has

   Why this is right

   This deals with Claim 3, which was one of the two claims we could tell Cynthia disagreed with. We can infer this answer choice from Enrique's statements, because he explicitly says it in his 2nd sentence. We can infer the disagree position from Cynthia. She believes the transit authority should not try this plan of operating w/o cutting service or raising fares until it runs out of money. She says that the transit authority cannot risk the potential backfire of that plan, which would be running out of money and having the federal government say, "Well --- I guess you're not a sustainable venture. We're going to just let you go out of business."

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

   92%
2. B

   Unsupported Both1% picked this

   the federal government should provide additional funding to the

   We can't support the Agree or Disagree position here. Enrique and Cynthia both only spoke to would / wouldn't the federal government provide additional funding if the transit authority ran out of money. Neither of them spoke to should / shouldn't the federal government kick in some money.

   1%
3. C

   Unsupported Both0% picked this

   it would be better for the transit authority to cut services than it would be

   We couldn't infer this position or the disagree version of this position from either paragraph, because neither person discusses the relative merits of "cutting services while maintaining fares" vs. "maintaining services while increasing fares".

   0%
4. D

   Unsupported Agree Position5% picked this

   the federal government is willing to provide additional funding to the

   Technically, we probably can't even infer the disagree position, but since Enrique said that "the feds so far have failed to provide additional funding", we could somewhat support the claim that "the feds are not willing to provide additional funding to the transit authority now". But we certainly can't derive the Agree position from Cynthia. She doesn't say anything that would support the claim that "the feds are willing to provide additional funding right now".

   5%
5. E

   Unsupported Agree Position1% picked this

   the transit authority can afford to operate for the next twelve months without cutting service even if it

   This relates to Enrique's claim 1, which we know Cynthia didn't comment on, so this can't be the answer. But there's no way we could infer this claim from either person's statements: "they don't cut services + they don't receive funding, but they CAN afford to operate for the next 12 months"

   1%