Q3 - More than a year ago, the city announced

[WaltGrace1983]

This is a necessary assumption question and, since comes up quite early in the section, we will probably be able to pre-phrase the answer.

The police are still writing as many speeding tickets as ever
→
It cannot be true that resources are being tied up in fighting drug-related crimes

So what's the gap? The gap is that, just because there is no decrease in writing speeding tickets, does not demand that there is not a decrease in the resources utilized to write those speeding tickets. What if the speeding tickets are easier to come by now? What if there have been a million more occurrences of speeding? What if the police are being less forgiving about speeding tickets so that they are now writing speeding tickets for going 2mph over but before they were not? Who knows!

(A) "Qualified" doesn't tell us that much. Also, this does not mention speeding tickets which is a huge red flag. Does every member of the police need to be qualified for this conclusion to make sense? Nope. This is just simply not necessary and it does nothing to bridge the gap at all.

(B) So what if it is not as serious of a problem? We still need to say something about the issue of speeding tickets, which is not said here! If we negate this, it really doesn't do anything to the argument.

(C) The big red flag here is "should be." We don't need to conclude anything about what the police force "should be" doing. This is simply not necessary.

(D) This actually might be leaning towards the opposite of what we want. This is basically saying that the police can do both! They can both crack down on the drug problem and not "have to reduce writing speeding tickets." This is a great trap answer for people just word matching.

(E) This is correct. If you try to negate it, it destroys the argument. This is helping the conclusion because, while the conclusion says that it is not possible to write as many speed tickets while diverting resources, this answer choice is also saying that.

"The police can continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever..."

That absolutely destroys the argument when we negate it! Thus, this has to be the correct answer.

[sumukh09]

Sorry, I don't see how E is a necessary assumption here.

The conclusion is that resources are not being tied up since the cops are writing as many tickets as ever while combating the drug problem.

But so what if they can continue to do this? How does this weaken the conclusion that resources are not being tied up? I don't see the connection here; just because they can continue to do what they've been doing with the resources they have, doesn't imply that they are being tied up. Or at least it doesn't seem that way to me.

Are we assuming that because they can continue to do this that resources are in fact being tied up?

[WaltGrace1983]

Sorry, I don't see how E is a necessary assumption here.

The conclusion is that resources are not being tied up since the cops are writing as many tickets as ever while combating the drug problem.

But so what if they can continue to do this? How does this weaken the conclusion that resources are not being tied up? I don't see the connection here; just because they can continue to do what they've been doing with the resources they have, doesn't imply that they are being tied up. Or at least it doesn't seem that way to me.

Are we assuming that because they can continue to do this that resources are in fact being tied up?

Remember that this is NECESSARY and not sufficient. It absolutely must be true that they are in fact not able to write as many tickets while combating the drug problem.

Let's say they can continue to write as many tickets while combatting the drug problem.

The police are still writing as many speeding tickets as ever
+
But they can continue to write as many speeding tickets while combatting the drug problem.
→
It cannot be true that resources are being tied up in fighting drug-related crimes

See how that makes the argument not follow from the premises? When we infuse the negated (E) into the problem, it is almost like saying "those premises are completely null and void as evidence for anything" and that is EXACTLY what we want!

Do you see it now? If not I can continue to help as much as I can! I like NA's

[sumukh09]

That makes sense although I guess I would have liked a more stronger word than "can" in the answer choice which would make this assumption sufficient as well as necessary.

[wzom10]

Is this thought process correct? or am I over-analyzing and wasting energy? thanks!



police are writing as many speeding tickets as before -----> resources haven't been diverted from writing speeding tickets to fighting drug crime.

Answers (A), (B), and (C) are easily eliminated, leaving only (D) and (E).

(D) The Police could be cracking down on illegally parked cars and drug crime without having to reduce writing speeding tickets.

(E) the police cannot continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever while diverting resources to combating drug crime.

Necessary assumptions ELIMINATE alternative explanations allowing the argument's conclusion to be drawn, and when they're negated and inserted within the argument, they destroy it. Answer choice (D) actually offers an alternative explanation as to why the police ARE still writing as many tickets as before. If we negate (D), it states: "the police COULDN'T be cracking down on illegally parked cars and drug crime without reducing ticket writing." That assumption essentially suggests resources WERE diverted from writing speeding tickets to fighting drug crime. Furthermore, this seems echo what the chief said about the diversion of resources, so it's essentially just restating the stim's counterpoint. After understanding why (D) isn't correct, it then becomes clear why (E) is the correct necessary assumption. Negated, it says "the police can continue writing as many speeding tickets while diverting resources to fight drug crime". Inserting that assumption within the argument destroys it and tells us that the original assumption stated by (E) is necessary for the argument to hold weight.

[WaltGrace1983]

Is this thought process correct? or am I over-analyzing and wasting energy? thanks!



police are writing as many speeding tickets as before -----> resources haven't been diverted from writing speeding tickets to fighting drug crime.

Answers (A), (B), and (C) are easily eliminated, leaving only (D) and (E).

(D) The Police could be cracking down on illegally parked cars and drug crime without having to reduce writing speeding tickets.

(E) the police cannot continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever while diverting resources to combating drug crime.

Necessary assumptions ELIMINATE alternative explanations allowing the argument's conclusion to be drawn, and when they're negated and inserted within the argument, they destroy it. Answer choice (D) actually offers an alternative explanation as to why the police ARE still writing as many tickets as before. If we negate (D), it states: "the police COULDN'T be cracking down on illegally parked cars and drug crime without reducing ticket writing." That assumption essentially suggests resources WERE diverted from writing speeding tickets to fighting drug crime. Furthermore, this seems echo what the chief said about the diversion of resources, so it's essentially just restating the stim's counterpoint. After understanding why (D) isn't correct, it then becomes clear why (E) is the correct necessary assumption. Negated, it says "the police can continue writing as many speeding tickets while diverting resources to fight drug crime". Inserting that assumption within the argument destroys it and tells us that the original assumption stated by (E) is necessary for the argument to hold weight.

I'm not a geek so feel free to disregard what I say. However, I'd say your thought processes is spot on! One thing that I would suggest, when taking a question like this under real time, is to focus on your pre-phrasing. While necessary assumption questions aren't always so easily pre-phrased because there could be so many ways the correct answer could go, you should understand the gap before going into the answer choices as often as possible.

So what am I trying to say? I am trying to say that the negation test is a backup plan and/or a way to check a correct answer. Because this question is #3, and thus is probably going to be slightly easier on the difficulty scale, focus more on your pre-phrasing and less on the negation test in order to find the correct answer. While your thought processes were great for review, you could have answered that question a bit more efficiently under timed conditions by thinking "A, no. B, no. C, no. Eh, D is okay...oh E is definitely right! Negation test...yep!"

No doubt (D) is tempting because of how relevant its language is. However, pre-phrasing this question correctly would make (D) significantly less tempting and, thus, will save you time.

[LolaC289]

If the word in (D) is changed from "could be" to "could not be", is it also a correct answer then?

Because the conclusion is about whether or not the police can "diverting resources" while write as many speeding tickets, I'm not sure the "combat the drug problem" part in (D) belong to a part of our conclusion.