Political scientist: When a bill comes before a legislative body, the majority of the representatives are usually pre...

Irina on October 7, 2019

@Ryan-Mahabir,

Let's look at the structure of the argument. We are given the following facts:
(1) Bill comes before assembly -> usually the majority are prepared to vote for it
(2) Bill is unlikely to get the support of the majority -> compromise is usually possible
(3) Bill concerns an issue of fundamental importance to a large bloc of representative -> compromise is impossible

Which of the following cannot be true based on these facts?

(C) Most bills concerning issues of fundamental importance to a large bloc of representative pass into law as a result of compromises over the bill contents.

If this were true, this would directly contract premise (3) that tells us that if the bill concerns issues of fundamental importance, then compromise is impossible. Hence, we can conclude that it must be false, and is therefore, (C) is the correct answer.

(D) Most bills concern issues of fundamental importance to a large block of representatives.

This could be true based on the facts in the stimulus. We only know that if most bills concern issues of fundamental importance, a compromise it is impossible, but this fact by itself is not contradictory. It could be true that most bills concern issues of fundamental importance, and the majority are usually prepared to vote for them.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

#JW on October 24, 2019

I understand C. But why is A ruled out? How is it not 100% false that "compromises regarding issues of fundamental importance... usually do not enable.." It can't be usually because its impossible, so I thought that must be false. Can you please explain A. Thanks.

shunhe on December 22, 2019

Hi @#JW,

The reason that we can rule out A is because we can't be sure if it's true or not. Why? Because the passages says these compromises don't occur. If they don't occur, we can't know what happens as a result of them. Hope this helps.