Q3 - Citizen of Morresville: Mooresville's current

[noah]

For #3, The conclusion of the argument is that the town can change the council's membership if everyone follows the citizens plan. Here's the plan: a) campaign against incumbents, but b) only cast a vote for the incumbent from his or her own neighborhood, then the council's membership would be substantially changed. The stimulus explains that voters can only vote for a representative from his or her own neighborhood and asks us what we'd need to assume for the plan to actually result in changing the council's membership.

If you take a moment to think about the plan, it doesn't really make sense. If everyone were to vote for their own neighborhood incumbent rep, wouldn't all of those incumbents be voted back in?! So, for there to actually be a change in the council membership, they'll need some people to not vote for their own incumbent, as (A) suggests, so that there can actually be some change.

(B) is irrelevant - there's no discussion of the number of voters.
(C) is similarly irrelevant - past attempts?
(D) is tempting - maybe we need the incumbents to be reaching the end of their terms to be able to shake up the council. But that's when we vote for folks - when their term is up! So, that actually allows us to vote for them again.
(E) is also tempting but it actually hurts the argument. We would want the newcomers - the challengers - to be better able to serve their neighborhoods, not worse!

[perng.yan]

I'm sorry. could you explain that again?

I don't think I even understand the flow of the argument itself.

Majority of the incumbents are re-running.

This citizen says (essentially), "the council is not doing a good job. i'm not going to vote for them! I'm only incumbent I'm voting for is the one that is in my neighborhood. You guys should do the same"

The rule is: everyone can ONLY vote for representatives from his/her own neighborhood

the only way for the council to have new memebers and NOt representatives is if there were more than one representative from their own neighborhood.. or else they would be forced to choosing the incumbent.. since they can only vote for reps. in their neighborhood....

i don't understand what that citizen is trying to achieve. He's assuming that an incumbent from the neighborhood will do a better job because he/she understands more. But if that were true, then the incumbents from the OTHER neighborhoods would be well at their job too because the ppl in that neighborhood would think that THEIR incumbent would know the situation as well....

*cOnFuSed*****

[noah]

I went back and cleaned up my explanation. Thanks for your question.

Does it make sense to you now?

[perng.yan]

ah.. yes.. thank you.. i still think it's a bad question though.. haha.. hoping i won't be tricked by LSAC again if a similar type question shows up on exam day!

[nthakka]

Two most tempting ACs were (D) and (E)

(D): Do all of the seats in the city council have to be filled by new people in order to shake up membership? Couldn't some, or most of these seats be filled but not all of them? If the Democrats control the House 55% to 45%, SOME seats filled by Republicans can have the effect of changing membership substantially. You don't need all 55% of Democrats to lose in order for the Republicans to be able to shake things up. Just 5%, or 6%.

(E): Who cares about how much people can actually serve these interests? The stem asks how membership can be changed substantially, not about the actual ability of these members to institute change. Further, even if this were true, this would indicate that the new members are worse than the incumbents, which isn't provable by the stimulus (and actually runs opposite to it).

(A): If nobody makes these exceptions, and everyone is just voting for their neighborhood representative (and we know they can ONLY vote for their neighborhood rep.) then how can membership be changed substantially? People would just keep voting for the same incompetent incumbents.

[deedubbew]

The only way I can make this work in my head is if there is only one neighborhood in the city of Mooresville. It seems that there actually be a substantial change to the council's membership if there is more than one neighborhood. Is this correct?

For #3, The conclusion of the argument is that the town can change the council's membership if everyone follows the citizens plan. Here's the plan: a) campaign against incumbents, but b) only cast a vote for the incumbent from his or her own neighborhood, then the council's membership would be substantially changed. The stimulus explains that voters can only vote for a representative from his or her own neighborhood and asks us what we'd need to assume for the plan to actually result in changing the council's membership.

If you take a moment to think about the plan, it doesn't really make sense. If everyone were to vote for their own neighborhood incumbent rep, wouldn't all of those incumbents be voted back in?! So, for there to actually be a change in the council membership, they'll need some people to not vote for their own incumbent, as (A) suggests, so that there can actually be some change.

(B) is irrelevant - there's no discussion of the number of voters.
(C) is similarly irrelevant - past attempts?
(D) is tempting - maybe we need the incumbents to be reaching the end of their terms to be able to shake up the council. But that's when we vote for folks - when their term is up! So, that actually allows us to vote for them again.
(E) is also tempting but it actually hurts the argument. We would want the newcomers - the challengers - to be better able to serve their neighborhoods, not worse!

[wardfg]

So im still a bit confused!! Isnt the stimulus saying the citizens are ONLY allowed to vote for a city council from his/her neighborhood? So then how can we make this 'exception' and have some vote out of their neighborhood?? Isnt that against the rules!?

Thanks in advance! Picked A but then confused myself and went with D :/

[noah]

So im still a bit confused!! Isnt the stimulus saying the citizens are ONLY allowed to vote for a city council from his/her neighborhood? So then how can we make this 'exception' and have some vote out of their neighborhood?? Isnt that against the rules!?

Thanks in advance! Picked A but then confused myself and went with D :/

The exception is not that they'd vote for someone out of their neighborhood. See if you can re-read and catch what it's really saying.

Then highlight below to see the rest of my explanation:
It's suggesting that some folks will have to not follow the exception that the citizen writing makes--that they will not support and vote for their neighborhood incumbent. Instead, they'll vote to get a new representative from their neighborhoods.

I hope that helps.

[ttunden]

So are we suppose to just ignore " everyone following the citizens example?"

because this is a must be true. And we gotta assume that the citizens are following the stimulus example, right? In order to reach the "membership being changed substantially" don't we have to assume the citizens are doing the things in the stimulus?

I've never seen a MBT question where we have to go against the premises.

[einuoa]

So are we suppose to just ignore " everyone following the citizens example?"

because this is a must be true. And we gotta assume that the citizens are following the stimulus example, right? In order to reach the "membership being changed substantially" don't we have to assume the citizens are doing the things in the stimulus?

I've never seen a MBT question where we have to go against the premises.

If we diagram the last bit
Everyone in Mooresville would follow example -> substantially change council's membership

but according to answer choice A, it's not contradicting that, it's giving the idea that
even if some voters do not follow example --> substantially change council's membership.

Which is possible, but this question is still pretty weird.

[alexroark5]

Two most tempting ACs were (D) and (E)

(D): Do all of the seats in the city council have to be filled by new people in order to shake up membership? Couldn't some, or most of these seats be filled but not all of them? If the Democrats control the House 55% to 45%, SOME seats filled by Republicans can have the effect of changing membership substantially. You don't need all 55% of Democrats to lose in order for the Republicans to be able to shake things up. Just 5%, or 6%.

(E): Who cares about how much people can actually serve these interests? The stem asks how membership can be changed substantially, not about the actual ability of these members to institute change. Further, even if this were true, this would indicate that the new members are worse than the incumbents, which isn't provable by the stimulus (and actually runs opposite to it).

(A): If nobody makes these exceptions, and everyone is just voting for their neighborhood representative (and we know they can ONLY vote for their neighborhood rep.) then how can membership be changed substantially? People would just keep voting for the same incompetent incumbents.

That's right. For answer choice D if it had read "at least some of the seats on the Mooresville city council are filled by incumbents whose terms are expiring" then that would be as equally a credible answer choice as A.

[ldfdsa]

That citizen didn’t vote for that his incumbent!!! for if he did so, and everybody follows him, there will be no change. looking in this way, (A) will make sense. "The only incumbent I will support and vote for is the one who represents my own neighborhood, because she has the experience necessary to ensure that our neighborhood’s interests are served." is just a fact or an opinion. The citizen never made an exception for his incumbent. So, we need someone who do not make the same exception for his incumbents.

[layla_chenjq]

So im still a bit confused!! Isnt the stimulus saying the citizens are ONLY allowed to vote for a city council from his/her neighborhood? So then how can we make this 'exception' and have some vote out of their neighborhood?? Isnt that against the rules!?

Thanks in advance! Picked A but then confused myself and went with D :/

Haha I finally figured this out! It assumes "you can ONLY choose a representative from your neighborhood", it doesn't confine that you can only choose the incumbent from your neighborhood, because there are many non-incumbent who can be the representative.

(A) states that there's someone doesn't choose the incumbent rather a non-incumbent, which does not contradict with the assumption.

Still, this question is "weird" because we are asked to do the MBT under a flawed stimulus. I think the way to attack it is to know the flaw firstly, then leave the logic of the stimulus behind to find the improved way to achieve the goal( in this question the goal is "substantially changing the council's membership".