giladedelman Wrote:Very good post!
So, your reasoning is 99% accurate. Let's walk through this question one more time.
Like you said, we have two premises that lead to our conclusion, so the core looks like this:
anti-gambling laws unenforceable
if a law is ineffective, shouldn't be a law --> anti-gambling laws shouldn't exist
Now, again as you pointed out, the gap here is pretty clear. The only thing we know about anti-gambling laws is that they're unenforceable. The only way we know whether a law should exist is whether it's effective. So we can expect the assumption to connect "unenforceable" to "ineffective" -- something like, if it's unenforceable, it's not effective. (The only thing I didn't like in your explanation is where you said "the author needs to assume that gambling laws are not effective because they are impossible to enforce." We don't need a causal connection. But I'm nitpicking.)
(A) is correct because if no effective law is unenforceable, no unenforceable law is effective, so the anti-gambling laws are ineffective and we should get rid of them.
(B) is the negated version of what we want. It doesn't tell us anything useful about unenforceable laws.
(C) is just a restatement of the premise that anti-gambling laws are unenforceable.
(D) and (E) are both out of scope because whether citizens agree doesn't affect our core whatsoever.
Now, notice that this question asks, "Which one of the following, if assumed, allows the argument’s conclusion to be properly drawn?" That means we're looking for a sufficient assumption, one that gets us all the way to the conclusion.
So, to answer your question, yes: if answer (A) said "anti-gambling laws are ineffective," that would be correct, because it would be enough to get us to the conclusion. But you were also right to prepare to find an assumption that linked the two premises, since that's the tendency on assumption family questions.
Does that satisfy you? Good explanation.
In terms of options C, may we also interpret option C as it tends to equate the characteristic of the subgroup of law, legal prohibition against gambling, to the overall group of law ? Since the second premises clearly stated that if a law is not effective, there should be no law, and the conclusion extrapolates that there should not be legal prohibition against gambling.
Option C = Any legal prohibition against gambling is not enforceable; however, it does not mean that the law other than the legal prohibition against gambling is also " not enforceable " either, and if its true, the subjects be discussed within both the 1 & 2 premises and option 3 is not the same, which makes it impossible to connect the sufficient assumption as correct option A does.
P1 = Regardless of the efforts, " All " laws are impossible to enforce.
P2= Any law fail to be effective, it should not be a law.
C = Legal prohibition against gambling ( law of one subgroups of law ) should not be existed.
Apparently, the correct answer is A, Effective law ---> enforceable, and, as my humble 2 cents to share, we may interpret option C in a different way other than regarding it simply as the premise booster.
Please critic and correct me if I am wrong. Deeply appreciate it.
