QUESTION TEXT: Municipal legislator: The mayor proposes that…
QUESTION TYPE: Identify the conclusion
CONCLUSION: There’s no harm in accepting the gift of high tech streetlights.
REASONING: Competitive bidding prevents gifts from influencing city contract bids. And the gift’s only ulterior motive is publicity during an upcoming convention. (The lights will be seen by mayors of other cities)
ANALYSIS: The word “surely” is significant. Anytime someone says “surely” they are indicating their opinion. Ironically, “surely” indicates the author is not sure.
Any statement of opinion, of uncertainty, is usually the author’s conclusion. So this argument’s conclusion is that there’s no harm to accepting the gifts.
Another way of looking at it is to ask: why are they telling me this? In this case, the argument is about whether to accept the gift. The author concludes “why not? There’s no harm”. All of the evidence is aimed at showing this lack of harm (competitive process prevents corruption, only ulterior motive is aimed at other cities).
___________
- The author didn’t say this. The company might very well want to influence bidding. What the author did say is that competitive bidding prevents influence.
- CORRECT. See the analysis above.
- This contradicts the stimulus. The author said there’s no harm in allowing the gift.
- This is a fact that supports the conclusion. The conclusion is that therefore there’s no harm to accepting the gift.
- This is a fact supporting the conclusion. Since the motive of the gift is not aimed at the city, then there’s no harm in accepting the gift.
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Sameer says
I thought A may possibly check out for this. Since the author later says the “only ulterior motive I can think of” is viewership by other cities’ mayors. This seems to indicate that indeed the fears are unfounded which is further supported by the existence of a competitive bidding process. Confused between A and B here and would be glad to hear your thoughts.
FounderGraeme Blake says
A talks about the fears that the company wants to influence the city. The author doesn’t think this is a risk, but their final sentence suggests they view it as a possibility. The legislator says that even if the company *does* want to influence bidding, the city’s procedure will prevent any harm.
So the legislator is saying:
1. I don’t think this is true, but
2. Even if it is true, we are safe
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.