Politician: Of the candidates running, Thompson is the best person to lead this nation. For one thing, Thompson oppos...

Ravi on July 12, 2019

@Hunter,

Happy to help. Let's take a look at (A) and (C).

(C) says, "Thompson has questionable opinions concerning important
issues other than taxes."

The problem with (C) is that it forces us to make too many
assumptions. With (C), we know Thompson has questionable opinions;
however, will those opinions affect his leadership capabilities?
Additionally, (C) does not attack the politician's reasoning as it is,
which is what we are looking to do on weaken questions. (C) merely
introduces a different consideration. What we're trying to do is
weaken the argument as it currently stands, and the only way that we
can do this is by focusing on the number of people who think that
opposing taxes makes for a superior leader. Thus, we can get rid of
(C).

(A) says, "Opposing higher taxes is not a factor contributing to good
leadership."

(A) tells us that the many people who are referred to in the stimulus
might not be correct in their beliefs about opposing taxes making for
a better leader. It's still possible that they're correct, but (A)
makes it appear that these people may not know what they're talking
about when it comes to leadership, so (A) casts doubt and therefore
weakens the politician's argument. Thus, (A) is the correct answer
choice.

Does this make sense? Let us know if you have any more questions!

Hunter on July 12, 2019

That's a great explanation! Thank you!

Ravi on July 30, 2019

@Hunter, you're welcome! Happy it helped!

bb427 on November 25, 2019

I thought D was a better answer because I equated adequacy with leadership. Can you help why that is not the right answer

shunhe on December 22, 2019

Hi @bb427,

One problem with (D) is that it goes from the relative language in the stimulus to an absolute metric of adequacy.

avif on June 18, 2020

Thanks Ravi for the explanation!