PT152 S1 Q20 ExplanationPolitician: Our government’s Ministry of the Environment

Answer choices, explained

1. A

   Bad Premise/Conclusion Match2% picked this

   If there was no need for scientific assessments of a set of issues before a government ministry responsible for those issues was formed, then

   It doesn't seem like either half of this answer matches up well with Evidence or Conclusion, but in particular we can glance at the right side of this conditional and judge how close it is to the wording of the Conclusion. This Principle would only allow us to conclude "assessments are unnecessary". The actual conclusion is "X should not issue assessments". Those feel different enough that we could bail from this on a first pass without looking closer.

   2%
2. B

   Correct60% picked this

   Scientific assessments should not be issued by government ministries unless they have very strong reason to believe that

   Why this is right

   The match to the Evidence isn't super compelling, but what is attractive about this answer is that its right side sounds like the wording in our conclusion. don't have very strong reason to believe scientific assessments issued ? assessments should by govt ministries not be issued by is accurate govt ministries Does our evidence establish that we don't have very strong reason to believe that assessments from government industries will be accurate? Sure. It provides a previous example in which assessments were not accurate. If we trigger this rule, we get language that sounds very useful towards deriving our conclusion: the MoH should not issue scientific assessments.

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

   60%
3. C

   Unrelated to Goal4% picked this

   Individuals and organizations should not exercise political pressure on government ministries that

   This principle would allow someone to chastise organizations for putting political pressure on government ministries. Our goal is to find a principle that allows someone to say, "The MoH should not issues scientific assessments on health".

   4%
4. D

   Opposite Conclusion28% picked this

   A government ministry should issue scientific assessments of certain issues if that ministry can successfully resist political pressures to modify

   The "if" tells us to put the second half of this answer choice on the left side of the conditional. The right side of this rule is going to say "a government ministry should issue scientific assessments", but we're trying to prove "should not issue scientific assessments". So this rule is worthless to us. (If we contraposed it, we'd have "should not issue" on the Left Side, but that's useless to us. We can only prove/conclude the stuff on the right side of the arrow.)

   28%
5. E

   Unrelated to Goal5% picked this

   The government ministry in charge of issuing assessments relating to health issues should firmly resist any political

   This is a principle that would allow one to conclude "the ministry should resist political pressure". That's not anywhere close to our actual conclusion: the ministry should not issue scientific assessments on health.

   5%