We are told that often prominent business executives play active roles in United States presidential campaigns as fund-raisers or backroom strategists. We also know that few of these prominent business executives actually seek to become president themselves. Instead, throughout history, the great majority of those who sought to become president have been lawyers, military leaders or full-time politicians.
The argument explains that this makes sense since the personality and skills that make a successful businessperson do not make a successful politician, i.e. businesspeople are more comfortable with hierarchical systems and less comfortable with compromises and power-sharing, which is found often in the coordinative system of politics.
We are looking for the answer choice that weakness the argument.
Answer choice (A) does nothing to the argument. We don't care about "many of the most active presidential fund-raisers and backroom strategists." We care about businesspeople who play roles as presidential campaign fund-raisers and backroom strategists." These two groups are not necessarily one in the same. Thus, whether or not many of the most active presidential fund-raisers and backroom strategists are themselves politicians makes no difference to the argument that prominent business executives who do play active roles in these presidential campaigns as fund-raisers or backroom strategists tend not to run for the position because of their discomfort with a coordinative political system.
Hope that clears things up! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
JayDee8732August 13, 2017
Why is B correct
halleraeFebruary 28, 2018
Is it the use of "Military Leaders" in B that makes it correct? Showing that they share the similar perspective of business execs but are still an integral proponent of politics and political action? (also President = commander in Chief)? I'm confused by this answer as well.
rweyerApril 6, 2018
In the passage it states that lawyers, military leaders, and full time politicians have sought out presidency. It also states that businesses are hierarchical rather than coordinative. The last statement says that " business executives tend to be uncomfortable with compromise and power sharing, which are inherent in politics"
If we can show that one of the three who seek out presidency also has an issue with compromise and power sharing than we have weakened the argument. B does exactly that.
ElizabethGlassmannJune 25, 2020
I had chosen A. My reasoning behind my why, which I am hoping you may go into more depth, is the assumption that politicians do the work that a business exec would do, under the scope of their skills. If politicians can utilize the same skills as the execs, my line of thinking landed me at A. I excluded B after some thought, because it only included military and not the rest. I have noticed this is a stumbling block for me. I notice on some questions we need to include most or all, but on this does the military represent all in the opposing group?
Thank you
shunheJuly 3, 2020
Hi @ElizabethGlassmann,
Thanks for the question! I think that assumption is what got you into trouble. You shouldn’t have just assumed that politicians do the work that a business exec can do. Even if that’s true, it’s outside knowledge that isn’t supposed to be appealed to on the test. We should know (A) is wrong almost immediately because it doesn’t mention either business executives or military. (B) is fine because the the military doesn’t need to represent ALL the common presidential aspirants; it’s enough to know that military leaders are often people who try to be president.
Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.
