Politician: Homelessness is a serious social problem, but further government spending to provide low income housing ...

MorganBunch May 5, 2022

Am I mapping out the argument properly?

I understand the question stem is only asking about the first sentence, but I was to make sure I understand how to map out arguments properly. I mapped it out as follows: Generalization/Problem: Homelessness is a serious social problem. Sub Con.: Further gov. spending to provide low-income housing... P: The most cursory glance at real estate.... C: So the frequent claim that people are homeless.... Thank you, Morgan Bunch

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Emil-Kunkin May 6, 2022

Hi Morganbunch,

You're right that for an argument structure question we only care about the statement in question, that is the first half of the first sentence.

I would probably break the argument down as follows:
H is bad, but govt shouldnt spend more on housing, because there are units available, so lack of units isn't the problem. I think your understanding of the argument structure is pretty good- and this is a strange setup where it is not immediately clear which of the two conclusion is the overall conclusion.

Before looking at the answer choices I would call the first statement either context, scene setting information, or an introduction. While the correct answer (that it is compatible with accepting or denying the conclusion) looks nothing like my pre phrase, that is in fact true of the statement.