Q17 - City leader: if our city adopts the new tourism plan,

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Inference (Most Strongly Supported)

Stimulus Breakdown:
The new tourism plan will create as many jobs as a new auto plant while costing less to enact. The auto plant is reasonable.

Answer Anticipation:
Seems like the new tourism plan is at least as good of a plan as the new auto plant. Since the city leader thinks the auto plan is reasonable, it stands to reason that the auto plant is, as well.

Correct answer:
(D)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Out of scope. The leader says it would be reasonable to do so, but not that the city should implement a plan. Also, the leader discusses two plans, but we don't know that either of these is the "least expensive" - there could be a third option that's even cheaper.

(B) Generalization. The city leader agrees it would be reasonable to do so for this auto plant, but we can't generalize from that, as this answer does.

(C) Out of scope. The city leader definitely implies that the city can afford to woo the auto plant, but there's no limitation placed on their funds.

(D) Boom. The tourism plan would have the same upside while being cheaper. If the leader thinks the auto plan is reasonable, and this plan is better, then he would almost certainly agree the tourism plan is reasonable as well.

(E) Degree/contradicted. "The only" is too strong here, especially since the leader states the tourism plan would create as many jobs as another plan (the auto plant).

Takeaway/Pattern:
When an Inference question is all about comparisons, make sure to get the details straight before heading to the answers.

#officialexplanation

[Verachy111]

Can someone please explain why B is wrong? It seems to restate the stimulus. Is wrong because it says in general or because the 'but' in the stimulus modified the reasonableness of the manufacturing plant?

[emil.brignola]

First it starts off by saying that if they adopt the new tourism plan then it will have similar results in terms of jobs as would building a manufacturing plant. Then it goes into saying that it would be reasonable to spend the money to build this manufacturing plant, and then the small twist at the end it says that tourism plan would cost less. So since its reasonable to spend money on building the plant, and given that the tourism plan costs less and has basically the same results in terms of jobs, it would also be reasonable to adopt the tourism plan.

I think B is wrong, correct me if im wrong, because of the "it is" in the answer choice and in the stimulus it says "would be", I say this because I dont know if it is reasonable (given the information in the stimulus) to build the plant when there is another alternate which is just as good and costs less. So if anything you could support it WOULD BE reasonable to adopt the tourism plan since it would be reasonable to spend the money (which would be more vs. how much it would cost the tourism plan) on the manufacturing plant.

Hope that helps

[contropositive]

I would say the problem with B is "in general" usually on inference questions when they start talking about what generally happens or principally then it's a red flag. We only learned about two comparisons (the tourism plan and the manufacturing plant). Perhaps there is a third plan that is more reasonable than the manufacturing plant so we can't infer that manufacturing is generally a reasonable decision.

Here is my thought process:

A) same reason as B. There could be a third option that is the least expensive compared to both tourism and manufacturing plant.

C) we don't know about the city's budget. they probably could be wealthy like Donald Trump

E) The only way...nope. We just learned manufacturing is another way. This must be false


If I am wrong, I hope someone corrects me.

[maryadkins]

I would say the problem with B is "in general" usually on inference questions when they start talking about what generally happens or principally then it's a red flag. We only learned about two comparisons (the tourism plan and the manufacturing plant). Perhaps there is a third plan that is more reasonable than the manufacturing plant so we can't infer that manufacturing is generally a reasonable decision.

Here is my thought process:

A) same reason as B. There could be a third option that is the least expensive compared to both tourism and manufacturing plant.

C) we don't know about the city's budget. they probably could be wealthy like Donald Trump

E) The only way...nope. We just learned manufacturing is another way. This must be false


If I am wrong, I hope someone corrects me.

Excellent work here!

[andrewgong01]

I was wondering if I can get your thoughts on how I tackled this inference question because I was intially hesitant in choosing "D", the correct answer, because to me it required knowing/inferring the argument core, which should not be done for Inference Questions.

It seems like for this inference question, we would have needed to know the argument core to conclude "D" because it is not something that is stated but something that could be argued based of the reasoning of the city leader . The city leader never said it was reasonable and, if anything, there could be downsides to the tourist plan (e.g. tourism may be a seasonal business or creates jobs only for certain demographics) that makes the auto plant more appealing.

However, the the way the city leader "argued" (it doesn't seem to really read like an argument though as the conclusion is left unknown) was that
1) Both proposals create the same amount of job
2) The cost of creating the car plant is worth it
3) The tourist plan is cheaper


It seems like the way the author would have argued it and the way we would make an argument core is that this argument argues on the basis of since both plans are good and the more expensive of the two plans is reasonable then the cheaper plan must be reasonable as well . (The assumption being that there are no downsides to the cheaper plan) . It also seems like a milder version of answer choice "A" (if i said implement the cheaper of the two options) would be needed to allow us to conclude "D" because the argument depends on assuming all that matters is "Cost"
It seems like the other inference questions do not seem to require knowing the structure of reasoning as we only had to match the question passage with choices. At the same time, all the other choices but "A" were extreme and clearly wrong and between "A" and "D" I chose "D" becaue it was less extreme and required less additional assumptions than "A" since "A" requires us knowing there are indeed only two plans and we should implement on cost alone whereas "D" only needs to assume we implement on cost alone.

[ohthatpatrick]

I think you made a lot of great observations, and you're right that (D) is certainly not an airtight inference, as there could be other aspects of the tourism plan that make it an unreasonable plan to adopt.

(We cannot say that the author assumed "cost is the only thing that matters" because the author definitely thought that number of jobs created also mattered)

Remember that drawing an Inference is synonymous with drawing a (valid, or at least well supported) Conclusion from the available evidence.

So I think you're getting the scent of an argument core because (D) is essentially what we would expect the author to say as a potential conclusion.

Just remind yourself that EVERY Inference question is simply saying ...

"Here are the available facts"
1) Both proposals create the same amount of job
2) The cost of creating the car plant is worth it
3) The tourist plan is cheaper

"Which answer can you best support using those facts?"

(D) is a highly supportable, though not bulletproof, idea. The other ones are all less supportable on the basis of the provided facts.

[StratosM31]

I would say the problem with B is "in general" usually on inference questions when they start talking about what generally happens or principally then it's a red flag. We only learned about two comparisons (the tourism plan and the manufacturing plant). Perhaps there is a third plan that is more reasonable than the manufacturing plant so we can't infer that manufacturing is generally a reasonable decision.

I politely disagree with the reasoning.

The statement that it would be reasonable is not made in comparison to the alternative option of the new tourism plan, so I think it would not be wrong to infer that it would be "in general reasonable" (it's actually creating jobs, so why should it not be reasonable?).

A way more obvious reason why answer (B) is wrong is because it is talking about "manufacturing companies", whereas the stimulus is only talking about AUTOMOBILE manufacturing companies.

Everything can fall under manufacturing (bikes, weapons, tables...), but the stimulus does not address anything except for automobile.

[Laura Damone]

I actually think you're both right about a key point: The problem with B is that it generalizes. It does so in two ways. It goes from auto-makers to manufacturing in general. It also goes from something being reasonable once to something being reasonable in general. Either on it's own is grounds for dismissal, and together, they're a double whammy.


But I also think there are minor flaws with both lines of reasoning. StratosM31, we cannot extrapolate from a single scenario that anything is reasonable in general. This is, and will always be, a red flag in Inference questions.

And I agree that the City leader's claim that it would be reasonable to try to get the auto maker to build a plant there is not comparative. S/he's not saying it's more reasonable than any one alternative; just that it would be a reasonable thing to do. That's a problem in Contrapositive's logic.

Good work all around, ya'll!