PT121.S4.Q10 > Question

SECTION 1 · lr

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5 Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12 Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19 Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26

SECTION 2 · rc

PASSAGE 1

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5

PASSAGE 2

Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12

PASSAGE 3

Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19

PASSAGE 4

Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

SECTION 3 · rc

PASSAGE 1

Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4 Question 5

PASSAGE 2

Question 6 Question 7 Question 8 Question 9 Question 10 Question 11 Question 12

PASSAGE 3

Question 13 Question 14 Question 15 Question 16 Question 17 Question 18 Question 19

PASSAGE 4

Question 20 Question 21 Question 22 Question 23 Question 24 Question 25 Question 26 Question 27

SECTION 4 · lr

The author concludes that the proposed coal-burning electric plant should be approved. His reasoning is that the only arguments against it have been offered by its competitors, who would benefit from denying it.

The author makes a classic ad hominem attack: he denies the arguments against the plant purely because of the character of those making them. But what if the competitors’ arguments happen to be correct, even though they have ulterior motives? If that’s possible, we wouldn’t want to automatically approve the plant.

Therefore, the author must assume that, if an argument is made by someone with a stake in the outcome, it is automatically not valid.

This assumption is too strong to be necessary. Even if the competitors only stood to lose modest amounts of revenue, it wouldn’t contradict the author’s argument. The competitors would still have a vested interest in denying the new plant.

This is the reverse of what the author is arguing. He implies that, if a person stands to gain from not implementing a proposal, then that person’s arguments against the proposal are invalid. Other people could still make their own bad arguments, without having vested interests.

The author’s argument is based on the financial interest of the competing producers to deny the plant. So coal suppliers’ potential approval of the plant is irrelevant, and he does not need to make any assumptions about it.

The author doesn’t indicate that any good arguments have been made for the proposal, only that bad arguments have been against it.

Negated, this is: arguments made by those with a vested interest in an outcome can be good arguments. If so, the arguments made by competitors against the plant could be valid. In that case, the author’s reasoning would fall apart. Consequently, he must assume (E) is true.

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