Q17 - Politician: Over the next decade, our city will be

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Evaluate

Stimulus Breakdown:
Plan: Replace old sign with easier-to-read ones.
Argument: No one's complaining, so this is a waste.

Answer Anticipation:
When saying that something is going to waste time/money, it's important to know what the baseline is. In this case, it'd be good to know how much time/money the government was going to spend anyway on sign maintenance.

Correct answer:
(C)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Out of scope. Since readability doesn't seem to be an issue, how (precisely) they're more readable won't help with the argument.

(B) Tempting. However, comparing the cost of the signs themselves doesn't help since the old signs are a sunk cost. A good test is to answer the question both ways to see if it changes your answer. Here, if they're more expensive, would you swap them out? Probably not. If they're less expensive, would you swap them out? Still no, because you're still spending new money.

(C) Bingo. If the town was going to swap them out anyway, then you might as well get better signs (even if no one's complaining). If the town wasn’t planning to replace them, then it'd be a waste of time and money to do so.

(D) Out of scope. The plans of other cities won't impact whether it's a waste in this city.

(E) Out of scope. We accept that they're more readable; we don't need experts to back tht up.

Takeaway/Pattern: For Evaluate questions with answer choices phrased as questions (Jeopardy!-style), try answering the question in the affirmative and the negative. If your answer changes, it's probably the correct answer.

#officialexplanation

[moshemeer]

Question Type:
Evaluate

Stimulus Breakdown:
Plan: Replace old sign with easier-to-read ones.
Argument: No one's complaining, so this is a waste.

Answer Anticipation:
When saying that something is going to waste time/money, it's important to know what the baseline is. In this case, it'd be good to know how much time/money the government was going to spend anyway on sign maintenance.

Correct answer:
(C)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Out of scope. Since readability doesn't seem to be an issue, how (precisely) they're more readable won't help with the argument.

(B) Tempting. However, comparing the cost of the signs themselves doesn't help since the old signs are a sunk cost. A good test is to answer the question both ways to see if it changes your answer. Here, if they're more expensive, would you swap them out? Probably not. If they're less expensive, would you swap them out? Still no, because you're still spending new money.

(C) Bingo. If the town was going to swap them out anyway, then you might as well get better signs (even if no one's complaining). If the town wasn’t planning to replace them, then it'd be a waste of time and money to do so.

(D) Out of scope. The plans of other cities won't impact whether it's a waste in this city.
,
(E) Out of scope. We accept that they're more readable; we don't need experts to back tht up.

Takeaway/Pattern: For Evaluate questions with answer choices phrased as questions (Jeopardy!-style), try answering the question in the affirmative and the negative. If your answer changes, it's probably the correct answer.

Is another reason why B is wrong because it says in the stimulus about the concept of wasting time and not only money as well?

[ohthatpatrick]

That's probably too narrow an objection.

If someone says "X is a waste of time and money"
and I prove "X is not a waste of money",
then I've already proven that original claim was false.

[SiyuY622]

I picked B. And now I get why C is right.
But I think, since the stimulus says the new ones is a colossal waste of time and money, the cost would be important to evaluate the conclusion.

[lunazhuyu]

Can somebody explain why B is wrong? Though I understand why C is right, I still don't get why B is wrong. I chose B cuz the word "colossal" in the last sentence of the stem. And B matches that word by "considerably".

Thanks in advance.

[DavidY128]

Can somebody explain why B is wrong? Though I understand why C is right, I still don't get why B is wrong. I chose B cuz the word "colossal" in the last sentence of the stem. And B matches that word by "considerably".

Thanks in advance.

This is how I saw it:
Focus in on the conclusion of the argument. Here, the author states "installing the new [street signs] is a colossal waste of time and money. So the author effectively limits the scope to the installation of the signs. Answer choice B is is out of scope because its talking about the manufacturing costs which is different.

[ShannonM90]

Here's my take on why B is wrong...
It says "Are the new street signs considerably more expensive to manufacture than the current street signs WERE?" To me, this doesn't guarantee that the manufacturing costs of the current street signs would be the same TODAY. So the historical cost is irrelevant when deciding whether the replacement signs would be a waste of money.