Q5 - Pundit: Clearly the two major political parties

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: The two major parties are sharply divided on issues.
Evidence: In the last four elections, the parties were separated by less than 1% of the vote.

Answer Anticipation:
It's a reasonable enough sounding argument, mostly because it plays off real world sensibilities of a two-party system that is sharply divided and has close election contests. But, does "a close vote" really say anything about how divided two parties are on issues? If two parties overlapped a bunch on the issues, couldn't you still have close elections? It almost makes MORE sense that the elections would be close if the two parties essentially held the same position on issues. How would you have a landslide in either direction if the parties wanted to do most of the same stuff?

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) There is no causal wording anywhere in the argument. (also "confuses cause with effect" has never been correct … any time an answer like this has been correct, the wording is more hedged, "treats something as a cause that is LIKELY an effect")

(B) There's no normative language in the argument. This is purely descriptive, so nothing is being assumed about good/bad.

(C) Ths is not a circular argument, since the premise is about close elections and the conclusion is about divided positions on issues.

(D) Who cares about other cities? Out of scope.

(E) YES, the author is indeed assuming that "premise indicates conclusion", or in this case that "even division in votes (close elections) lets us conclude sharp division on issues".

Takeaway/Pattern: When answer choices start with "presumes / takes for granted" they're accusing the author of having assumed something. We can ask ourselves , "WAS the author assuming this?" If yes, it's correct. If not, it's not.

When an answer choice has a two part structure, such as "concludes Y on the basis of X" or "takes for granted that X indicates Y", we can just ask ourselves "Does this match the argument core?" If yes it's correct. If not, it's not.

#officialexplanation