Saunders: Everyone at last week's neighborhood association meeting agreed that the row of abandoned and vandalized ho...

Mehran February 7, 2014

Let's break down the argument. We know that everyone at the neighborhood association meeting agreed that the the row of abandoned and vandalized houses poses a threat to the safety of the neighborhood.

No one disputes the fact that getting the houses torn down would have eliminated that threat.

However, some people argued that demolition was unnecessary because they claimed that the buildings were basically sound, since the city had established a fund to help people in need of housing buy and rehabilitate such buildings.

The author then concludes that due to the overwhelming success of the demolition strategy, the majority who favored demolition were right and those who claimed that the problem could and should be solved by rehabilitating the houses were wrong.

This is clearly a flawed argument. The fact that the other option (i.e. demolition strategy) was successful tells us nothing about the viability of the other option (i.e. rehabilitation).

The question stem, however, is asking us to identify the principle that WILL determine which of these options was the right decision. So this is a Strengthen with Sufficient Principle question but notice that we aren't limited to guaranteeing the conclusion here. We are trying to find the principle that allows us to choose one of the two options over the other.

Answer choice (A) is incorrect because it does not allow us to select which option is correct. (A) says that when what to do about an abandoned neighborhood building is in dispute, which is the situation presented in the stimulus:

not CAMH ===> TNS
not TNS ===> CAMH

CAMH = course of action that would result in the most housing for people who need it
TNS = threat to neighborhood safety

We know from the stimulus that the row of abandoned and vandalized houses posed a threat to the safety of the neighborhood. However, this is the necessary condition in (A), so it would not allow us to determine anything else.

Answer choice (B), on the other hand, helps us determine which approach is the right decision. Let's piece it apart.

(B) states that "when there are two proposals for solving a neighborhood problem," which is our current situation (i.e. either to demolish or rehabilitate) "and only one of them would preclude the possibility of trying the other approach if the first proves unsatisfactory," (i.e. demolishing the houses would preclude rehabilitating them because there would be no abandoned houses to rehabilitate) "then the approach that does not foreclose the other possibility should be the one adopted," (i.e. rehabilitation because it does not foreclose the possibility of demolition should be adopted).

Answer choice (B) clearly determines that the proposal advocated by the opponents of demolition (i.e. rehabilitation) should have been the one adopted.

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

Batman February 15, 2014

Thanks a lot!!! I failed to understand the question stem correctly. Now I got it^^

marissa August 9, 2018

Why is D not correct? I was stuck between B and D and I just chose wrong, pls help

Anita August 9, 2018

@marissa D is very intriguing, but the catch here is that it focuses on investigating the other solutions. We know that at least some people did advocate for other options, which may or may not mean that other options were investigated. In addition, it doesn't tell us to try a certain solution before demolishing houses, but rather just to look into it; this still leaves us open to whether demolishing them was the correct solution or not. Since it doesn't quite get all the way there, B is the better answer because it gives us a more solid principle: that we should always try solutions that do not preclude a plan B first.