Families with underage children make up much of the population, but because only adults can vote, lawmakers in democr...

BenMingov on December 17, 2019

Hi Ryan, thanks for the question.

This is a Strengthen with Necessary Premise question and as such, we will need to identify the answer choice that contains an assumption that the argument depends on. To test this, we negate the answer choice and examine whether this negated form weakens the argument.

Answer choice E is correct because when negated it becomes: "A group of people cannot be fairly represented in a democracy if some members of that group can vote on behalf of others in that group"

If allowing some to vote on behalf of others is inherently unfair, then the argument collapses as allowing parents to vote on behalf of their children would not result in fair representation.

Answer choice D when negated becomes: "It is fair for lawmakers to favour the interests of people who have the vote over the interests of people who do not have the vote"

The idea that just because it is fair to favour one group over another, does not mean that families with parents voting for their underage children would not receive fair representation. It does not weaken the argument.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions!

FS101 on June 26, 2020

how is this a strengthen with necessary premise when it is under the principle section in the analytics @ben?

BenMingov on June 27, 2020

Hi Sheikhd, thanks for the question.

I guess this would be a combination in that case. In my opinion, principle isn't really its own true question type because there are so many different principle question styles. Strengthen principle, parallel principle, this one right here for example is strengthen with necessary premise + principle. Principle can add on to any question type.

The reason I identified it as that is because the core of the question stem is remarkably consistent with a regular strengthen with necessary premise and the negation technique seems to work as well!

Please let me know if you have any other questions!

Kweb1016 on November 18, 2020

In the answer explanation, it considers this to be an problem/solution type of question. I bring this up because I am curious to know what other types of questions there are in general. I can think of a few, like cause/effect, phenomenon/explanation, and now problem/solution, but I assume there are more, and if so, might somebody list them off for me, if it's not too much trouble? Thanks

Kweb1016 on November 18, 2020

Also, in review, even in questions that I fairly well understand, is it in general better practice too review every answer choice or simply move on in favor of getting more at bats, so to speak? Thanks