Logical Reasoning

PT21 · S3 · Q4 Campaigning for election to provincial

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Campaigning for election to provincial or state office frequently requires that a candidate spend much time and energy catering to the interests of national party officials who can help the candidate to win office.

Conclusion (thus)

The elected officials who campaign for reelection while they are in office often fail to serve the interests of their local constituencies.

Evidence

Campaigning for election requires that a candidate spend much time and energy catering to the interests of national party officials who can help the candidate to win office.

Evaluate

The conclusion here has a couple New Concepts: campaigning for reelection / failing to serve interests of local constituencies.

What do we know about elected officials campaigning for reelection while they are in office? We don't know anything specifically, but in virtue of the fact that they are campaigning for an election, we know they have to spend a lot of time and energy catering to the interests of national party officials.

Whether you're trying to get elected initially or reelected, that first sentence applies to you.

So if we do a little algebraic substitution, the conclusion is saying:

People who have to spend a lot of time and energy catering to the interests of national party officials often fail to serve the interests of their local constituencies.

The argument never defines any premise about what local constituencies need, what kind of stuff does / doesn't serve their interests. So there is a big Missing Link here.

Goal

Look for an answer making this sort of connection: .

However, the conclusion is only saying you'd often be failing to serve your locals' interests, so conditional strength would probably be too strong.

4.

Which one of the following is an assumption made by the argument?

  1. Correct

    Catering to the interests of

    Why this is right

    This connects the premise idea to the conclusion idea. And since it says "sometimes", it's definitely not too strong. If we negated this answer, it would be saying, "catering to the interests of national party officials never conflicts with serving the interests of local constituencies." That would be a huge objection. The only reason the author thinks that elected officials will often fail to serve the locals' interests is because the elected officials will be spending a lot of time and energy catering to the interests of national party officials. But if those two things never conflict, then doing one doesn't impede the other.

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

    76% picked this

  2. Only by catering to the

    Too Strong: only

    On Necessary Assumption, we're always squeamish about strong language (not that it's never correct, but we should never feel okay picking it without worrying about whether that strength of language is justified). Did this author promise that you cannot win reelection unless you cater to national party officials' interests? No, the author just said that campaigning for election frequently requires catering to them. She didn't say it always requires doing so.

    6% picked this

  3. The interests of local constituencies

    Too Strong: only

    On Necessary Assumption, we're always squeamish about strong language (not that it's never correct, but we should never feel okay picking it without worrying about whether that strength of language is justified). Did this author promise that the interests of local constituencies are never served by elected officials who do cater to the interests of national party officials? No, the author is just concluding that the interests of local constituencies are often not served by elected officials cater to the interests of national party officials.

    16% picked this

  4. Officials elected to provincial or

    Too Strong

    Too Strong: only Out of Scope: same party This answer is also too strong. The paragraph never talks about whether elected officials serve the interests of all their constituents or only the constituents that belong to their party. We also never talked about anyone being obligated to serve anyone's interests.

    1% picked this

  5. All elected officials are likely

    Too Strong: all

    The author makes no predictions or claims about what % of elected officials seek another term. The conclusion is talking only about the elected officials who do seek reelection, but it doesn't matter if that's 5% of elected officials or 100%.

    1% picked this

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