Self-study
Conclusion Among multiparty democracies, those with the fewest parties will have the most-productive legislatures. ███ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ███████ ██ █ ██████████ ███ ████ ██████ ████ ████ ████ █ █████ ███ █ █████████ █████ ████ ████ ████ ██████ ██ █ ████ ███████ ██ ██████ ███ ██ ██████████ █████ ███████ ████ ████████ █ ████████ ██ ███████████
Summary
When there are fewer parties, each must take a stand on more issues. When a party takes a stand on lots of issues, they have more of a tendency to compromise. Therefore, democracies with fewer parties are more productive.
Notable Assumptions
The conclusion of this passage claims that fewer party democracies are more productive, however the premises are focused only on the tendency to compromise. There is some missing assumption here that connects the fact that compromise is more likely when there are fewer parties to the claim that these systems are actually more productive.
16.
Which one of the following ██ ██ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ █████████
a
The more political ███████ █ ██████ ████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ██ ████ █████ ████ ██ █████████████ ██████ ████████
The argument doesn’t need to say anything about disagreements within parties - the focus is on the broader tendency to compromise, which can exist even if this were false and there were fewer disagreements within parties.
b
The fewer the ██████ ██ █ ████████ █████████ ████████ ███ ████ █████████ ██ ██ ████ █████ ███████ ███ ██████████ ████ ████ ██████
This argument doesn’t need to say anything about the importance of compromise - it is focused only on the compromise and productivity, not whether or not this is a good thing or how important that compromise is.
c
The tendency to ██████████ █████ ███ ███████████ ███████ ████ ███████████
This provides the missing link between compromise and productivity. If this were false, and compromise doesn’t promote productivity, there would be no reason to believe the conclusion that fewer party systems are more productive.
d
The legislatures of ██████████████ ███ ████ ██████████ ████ ███ █████ ██ ████████████
The argument does not say anything about nondemocracies, and does not need any assumptions about their qualities.
e
Legislators in a ██████████ █████████ █████ ███ █████ ██ █████████ ███████
This is too strong. The argument is about compromise more generally, and does not require a broad claim that legislators never agree in order to suggest some systems are more productive than others.