Since anyone who supports the new tax plan has no chance of being elected, and anyone who truly understands economics...

Ravi on October 22, 2019

@Ryan-Mahabir,

Let's take a look at (D) and (B).

It first helps us to diagram the stimulus:

1) support tax plan - >no chance of being elected

2) understand economics - >not support tax plan

conclusion: 3) chance of being elected - >understand economics

The first and second statements do not link up. It's clear that the
argument is attempting to use the contrapositive of the first
statement to link up with the second statement, but this does not work
because we do not have like terms on opposite sides of the arrow that
match, which means we cannot link the statements together.

Based on these statements, the author could conclude that the only
people who have a chance of getting elected are those that don't
support the tax plan. However, the author can't conclude that they
have to understand economics because there could be lots of people who
do not understand economics but still do not support the tax plan.

Let's look at the answer choices now.

(B) says, "truly understand economics have no chance of being elected"

The argument concludes that the only people who have a chance of
getting elected are the people who understand economics. This leaves
open the possibility that some subset of that group has no chance of
getting elected for some reason other than supporting the tax plan,
which is why we can get rid of (B).

(D) says, "do not support the tax plan do not truly understand economics"

(D) looks great. The argument moves from the idea that people who
understand economics do not support the tax plan to the idea that
those are the ONLY people who do not support the plan. However, there
could be all sorts of other people who don't know anything about
economics and still do not support the tax plan. (D) picks up on this,
so it's the correct answer choice.

Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any other questions!