Logical Reasoning

PT151 · S2 · Q5 Political strategist: Clearly, attacking an

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Political strategist: Clearly, attacking an opposing candidate on philosophical grounds is generally more effective than attacking the details of the opponent’s policy proposals.

Conclusion (clearly)

Attacking an opposing candidate on philosophical grounds in generally more effective than attacking the details of the opponent's policy proposals.

Evidence

A philosophical attack links an opponent's policy proposals to an overarching ideological scheme, thereby telling a story, providing context, and making the attack emotionally compelling.

Evaluate

The conclusion is a comparison between two different strategies, and the author is ultimately trying to say that one strategy is generally more effective than the other.

The stuff we hear about the supposedly better strategy is that it links an opponent's policies to an overarching ideology, thereby telling a story and providing context, and thereby making the attack emotionally compelling.

Since there is a chain of causality or reasoning there, we can suspect that LSAT is testing us on where that chain ends.

Ultimately, we're hearing that attacking on philosophical grounds is more effective because it's emotionally compelling.

Goal

The most likely answer would be a missing link between "emotionally compelling" and "more effective". But the author is also assuming that "linking to an ideological scheme" is connected to being more effective, and that "telling a story and providing context" is connected to being more effective.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the political strategist’s argument?

The stories that people are
Out of Scope
Out of Scope: most likely to remember This argument is never concerned with which stories are most likely to be remembered, so the author isn't assuming anything about that concept. We want to see an answer talk about what would make one technique more effective than another.
2% picked this
Correct
Political attacks that are emotionally
Why this is right
This links together where are Premises end with what our Conclusion is trying to say. The premises tell us ultimately that a philosophical attack is emotionally compelling, and on this basis the author concludes that a philosophical attack is more effective than attacking policy details. This answer reflects that Missing Link in the author's thinking. If we negated this and said, "attacks that are emotionally compelling are generally not more effective", then we would badly weaken the argument.
Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
89% picked this
Political attacks that tell a
Premise-Pretzel
It's always a trap answer when they take one single claim, like "thereby telling a story and providing context", and then try to make a strong relationship out of words in that claim. The author never generalized about all political attacks that tell a story. We have no idea if she thinks they're better at providing context than those who do not. Suppose we said, "My buddy Ted is dating this new girl Eileen, who is a law student and an avid jogger". This type of answer would say I'm assuming "People in law school are more likely to regularly jog than are people who aren't". I'm not assuming anything like that. I just happened to use the words "law school" and "jog" in the same sentence!
2% picked this
Voters are typically uninterested in
Out of Scope
Out of Scope: uninterested Too Strong: typically The author never talked about whether more than 50% of voters are uninterested in policy details. She isn't talking about whether people are interested or not. She's just saying that attacking your opponent on philosophical grounds is more effective than attacking your opponent's policy details. Even if people are interested in these policy details, attacking on philosophical grounds could be more effective because it's more emotionally compelling.
1% picked this
Most candidates’ policy proposals are
Too Strong: most
The word "most" is wrong on Necessary Assumption 98% of the time we see it. Does the author need to assume that more than 50% of policy proposals are grounded in an overarching ideological scheme? Would the argument be badly weakened if only 49% of policy proposals are grounded in such a scheme? Of course not, which is why the author doesn't need to assume that most are. The author is advocating that politicians link an opponent's policy proposal to an overarching ideological scheme, but that doesn't imply that the opponent's policy proposal is grounded in such a scheme. It only assumes that at least some of the time, a politician would be able to link the opponent's proposals to an ideological scheme.
5% picked this

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