Q13 - Mayor: Some residents complain

[smiller]

Question Type:
Principle Support

Stimulus Breakdown:
Premises:
1. The city will charge homeowners a fair price for water service.
2. The plan will benefit all residents by increasing the city's revenue and by making the city healthier and safer to live in.

Conclusion:
The city has a right to require homeowners to connect to city water service.

Answer Anticipation:
A correct answer will state that one or more of the reasons in the premises—a fair price, increasing revenue, making the city safer, or making the city healthier to live in—justifies requiring homeowners to connect to city water service. The correct answer might be very general. For example, it could state, "the city is justified in requiring homeowners to take any action that benefits all homeowners."

Correct answer:
A

Answer choice analysis:
(A) This answer lines up with our prediction. It definitively states that the fair price and benefit to all residents justifies the requirement.

(B) This is similar to our prediction, but it's incorrect because the logic is reversed.

(C) Like choice (B), this contains some of the terms we expect to see in a correct answer, but it's an invalid negation.

(D) The conclusion of the argument is not about residents having a right to complain. It is about the city having a right to require homeowners to connect to water services. These might seem related, but they are different concepts. The city could have the right to make the requirement regardless of whether or not residents have a right to complain, and vice-versa.

(E) This is a tricky answer choice. It seems close to what we want. However, choice (E) focuses on what the city is "able" to do. There's a subtle but important difference between having the right to do something and being able to do it. Someone might have the right to drive a car, but if a blizzard drops a massive amount of snow that traps the person inside their house, they might not be able to drive anywhere.

Takeaway/Pattern:
Like Sufficient Assumption questions, the correct answers to Principle Support questions are often phrased as conditional statements. Watch out for illegal reversals and illegal negations. Also watch out for answers containing terms that are significantly different from those in the premises and conclusion.

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