Q24 - Clearly, a democracy cannot thrive

[karamcdono]

Can anyone explain this to me? My diagramming quickly turned to mayhem when I was doing this question. I narrowed down to D and E, and since I was rushing because it was the end of the section, I picked D because it looked to have the closest connection.

Thanks!

[maryadkins]

Sure! Here's what I got.

Conclusion:

Democracy thrives --> effective news media

[No effective news media --> no thriving dem]

Premises:

Democracy thrives --> electorate is knowledgeable

Knowledgeable electorate --> access to unbiased info

We have a sufficient assumption question here, so we're trying to make the argument work. In other words, where the red arrow is below, there is a gap:

Democracy thrives --> effective news media

We want to fill this gap as much as possible using our premises:

Democracy thrives --> electorate is knowledgeable --> access to unbiased info --> effective news media

Note where our gap is, now: if we link access to unbiased info to effective news media, we'll close it!

Boom, (E) does it via the contrapositive:

No effective news media --> no access to biased info

Once we contrapose it, it translates to precisely what we're looking for:

access to unbiased info --> effective news media

None of the others do this.

(A) is Effective news --> thriving dem [REVERSAL!]

(B) unbiased --> knowledgeable [REVERSAL!]

(C) knowledgeable --> thrive [REVERSAL]

(D) brings in EXPOSURE to biased information which the argument isn't about. It's about access to unbiased info. Even if we read "biased info" as the opposite of "access to unbiased," it wouldn't bridge the gap.

[CalPoliScience2016]

I got this question wrong on timed practice but on review, it's actually REALLY easy.

Sufficient assumption questions are formulaic. You just link up the new term in the conclusion with the answer choice. What's the new term in this conclusion? "effective news media".

Eliminate all answers without the term "effective news media". That's B, C, and D.

Now it's just down to A and E.

Looking at A, it's essentially the conclusion but with the clauses reversed. How can this possibly be right? It's basically re-stating the conclusion, but incorrectly. There's no way that's a SUFFICIENT ASSUMPTION. An explicit statement is not an assumption (an assumption is an unstated premise). Eliminate.

Now we are down to E. As a conditional this reads "if electorate has access to unbiased information -> effective news media". Viola, that links up the premises to the conclusion that a democracy needs (i.e. necessary condition) an effective news media.