Logical Reasoning

PT154 · S2 · Q15 Journalist: Despite the recent spate

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Journalist: Despite the recent spate of depressing political news, many investors are putting money into stocks.

Conclusion (Thus)

It's likely that the party now in power will retain power after the upcoming elections.

Evidence (since)

Voter confidence in the economy tends to favor incumbent political leaders.

Intermediate Conclusion (Clearly)

Investors are confident the economy will see increased growth.

Evidence

Many investors are putting money into stocks.

Evaluate

There's a real keyword gumbo going on here: clearly, thus, since. These indicate multiple conclusions, so we theoretically have different reasoning moves to analyze, if we're looking for assumptions.

The logic of all the indicator words works like this:

Despite [counterpoint], opposing idea claim 1. prem supporting 2 Clearly, claim 2. conc, supported by 1. Thus, conc, supported by 2. since claim 3, prem, supporting 4. claim 4. conc, supp by 2+4

I typed that and it looks like crazytalk even to me, but each of those indicator words tells you a story of who's supporting whom or opposed to whom. It's not a replacement for comprehension, but it's a way to understand things when you're not comprehending very well. (sort of like relying on conditional logic indicator words to deal with conditional logic).

Our author's two linking assumptions, therefore, would sound like this

If ... Then ... investors are putting investors are confident money into stocks → in economic growth

If ... Then ... investors are confident in economic growth The incumbents and → will retain power voter confidence tends to favor incumbents

The first linking assumption was joining claim 1 to claim 2. The second was joining claims 2 and 3 to claim 4.

More conversationally, this author is expecting the incumbents to win the upcoming election, because when voters are confident in the economy, incumbents usually win.

Okay .... are voters confident in the economy?

The author would say

Okay ... does investor confidence match voter confidence?

Goal

The correct answer could test the move from "putting money into stock market" to "confident in growth of economy", but it's more likely to address the switch the argument makes from talking about investor confidence to talking about voter confidence, while acting like we're still talking about the same thing.

15.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the journalist's reasoning?

The economic policies pursued by
Too Strong: major factor
The author could believe major factor, minor factor, no factor ... it wouldn't make any difference in her argument. She only needs to believe that voters tend to vote for incumbents when the economy is doing well. That may be because voters are convinced that the incumbent government must be a major factor in why the economy is sizzling, but our author doesn't need to have that belief. She's just predicting an election result, not evaluating it as a right / wrong.
4% picked this
The investment choices of voters
Out of Scope: investment choices
This argument doesn't need to assume that voters invest any money, let alone that they invest it in a way that reflects their politics. The author has to assume that "if investors are confident in the economy, then so too are voters", but that doesn't require that voters are themselves investors. Our author is thinking that the political preferences of voters will tend to reflect their confidence in the economy, not that their political affiliations will tell them where to invest their money.
11% picked this
Correct
The economic attitudes of investors
Why this is right
In order for the author's claim 2 and claim 3 to join forces, we need to assume that "if investors are confident, then voters are confident". This answer choice is addressing that gap. If we hadn't anticipated this gap, we should still have slowed down and considered this answer when we saw its enticing ruling out "no / not" language (which is a hallmark of many correct Necessary Assumption answers). If we negate this answer, does it weaken? The economic attitudes of investors do differ greatly from those of voters in general. Yes! The author only established that investors are confident in the economy. But her election prediction hinges on the idea that voters are confident in the economy and will thus reward the incumbent party by "renewing their lease".
Skill tested: Necessary Assumption · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
77% picked this
Voters generally attribute some responsibility
Opposite, if anything
The notion of previous governments is completely out of scope. We only care about who will likely win this upcoming election. Since the author is predicting that voters will reward the incumbents with a victory based on the successful economy, she is probably thinking that voters credit the current government with the state of the economy.
8% picked this
Voters are usually more loyal
Out of Scope Comparison
Nothing in this argument deals with the distinction between supporting a party and supporting an individual politician. The author's logic doesn't care whether people are usually more loyal to A than B, more loyal to B than A, or loyal to both of them about equally. It has no logical bearing on her prediction about the upcoming election.
1% picked this

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