24 - The revolutionary party has been accused of having many

[ShirleyX300]

Historian: The revolutionary party has been accused of having many overambitious goals and of having caused great suffering. However, most of the party's goals were quickly achieved and the party did not have enough power to cause the suffering the critics claim it caused. So it is clear that the party was not overambitious and caused no suffering. The reasoning in the historian 's argument is flawed because the argument
(A) gives mutually inconsistent responses to the two criticisms
(B) fails to establish that the revol utionary party caused no suffering
(C) fails to establish that any of the revolutionary party's critics underestimated the party's power
(D) provides no evidence that the revolutionary party's goals were not overambitious
(E) fails to consider other major criticisms of the revolutionary party

I can see why B is the correct answer but I don't understand why D doesn't work. There is no connection between overambitious goals & quickly achieved...

[KrisY62]

One trick here was that you're reading "fails to establish" twice in a row for B and C, and when you hit D and read "provides no evidence" it becomes easier to accidentally equate the two phrases as having identical meanings.

My prephrase went something like: "having most of your goals quickly achieved doesn't necessarily mean you're not overambitious. What if you never got around to the last 10% of your objectives?" I was pretty tempted by D, because it looked an awful lot like my prephrase (dollars to doughnuts that this is by design).

However, when we think about the wording "provides no evidence", D is stating that the argument is providing ZERO support for the claim that the revolutionary party's goals weren't overambitious. Is the argument making an airtight case for the party not being overambitious? Nope. But does the fact that the party achieved most of its goals fairly quickly count as at least SOME evidence? Absolutely.

B is correct, because if you were to quantify suffering (and give some arbitrary number), the Historian's basically saying: "Critics claim that the revolutionary party caused 60% of people to suffer. But the revolutionary party didn't have the necessary power to cause 60% of people to suffer. Therefore, the revolutionary party caused 0% of people to suffer." You can see that any given example of the revolutionary party causing 1%-59% of people to suffer would obey the Historian's premise, but simultaneously destroy their conclusion.