Without information that could only have come from someone present at the secret meeting between the finance minister...

on July 24, 2020

Confused on how to arrive to the answer

Wasn't sure how you get A

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Victoria on July 24, 2020

Hi @rwhittle@colgate.edu

Happy to help!

Let's start by going through the stimulus to see if we can pick out the error in reasoning.

The stimulus concludes that the finance minister was brought down by his aide as opposed to his political enemies.

Why? Because the story which forced the finance minister to resign could not have been written without information from the secret meeting between the minister and the leader of the opposition party. The only other person at the meeting was the aide.

What is the error here? The stimulus concludes that the aide must have leaked the information without explaining why it could not have been the leader of the opposition party.

In this way, the stimulus draws its conclusion based on evidence which provides equally strong support for a competing conclusion (i.e. that the leader of the opposition party leaked the information). This is restated by answer choice (A), making it the correct answer.

Hope this is helpful! Please let us know if you have any further questions.