LR Question 22 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Consumer advocate: There is no doubt that the…
QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption
CONCLUSION: The government is to blame for higher gas prices!
REASONING: The government has increased consumer demand. This increase in consumer demand has raised prices.
ANALYSIS: The government didn’t directly cause the gas price increase. Instead, the government cause one thing (consumer demand) which in turn raised gas prices.
The author is assuming government is responsible for things it doesn’t cause directly.
___________
- CORRECT. If this isn’t true, then the government is only responsible for raising consumer demand. It isn’t responsible for the gas price increase, since that was indirect.
Negation: The government is only responsible for things it causes directly.
(i.e. the government cannot be responsible for things it only causes indirectly) - This is a trap answer. We don’t know if the consequences were unforeseen! It might have been obvious that government policies would raise demand and therefore gas prices.
- This isn’t necessary. We already know consumer demand raised prices in this case.
Negation: In a different time period, it would have been possible for consumer demand to increase without raising gas prices. - This stimulus isn’t talking about obligations. It’s only talking about what caused an increase.
- This isn’t necessary. The argument is only about whether the government was responsible in this case.
Negation: Gas prices can vary even if the government does nothing.
For B, even if we assume that it is unforeseen, the answer choice doesn’t wreck the argument because of the “some”.
In my opinion, you’d have to use something like “The government is never responsible” in the answer because the stimulus says “There is no doubt”.
Some negates to none though. It is analogous to the word can in A, which negates to can’t. Some is an excellent answer for a necessary assumption answer, as moving from some to none is devastating to a lot of arguments.
If the answer had said “never responsible for unforeseen consequences” that wouldn’t be necessary. It would negate to “in one instance the govt is responsible for unforeseen consequences, but not in this case”. And that wouldn’t affect the argument.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.