Self-study
Political scientist: Support People become unenthusiastic about voting if they believe that important problems can be addressed only by large numbers of people drastically changing their attitudes and that such attitudinal changes generally do not result from government action. ███ ██████████ █████ ███████ ██ ████ ████████ ███ ██ █ ███████ ██████████ ████ ███████████ ██████ █████ ███ ████ █████████ █████████
Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The political scientist argues that decreasing voter turnout is entirely explained by people losing faith in the government’s ability to solve problems. This is because people losing faith in government’s ability to change public opinion is an example of something that causes people to lose enthusiasm for voting.
Identify and Describe Flaw
This argument is flawed because it treats a sufficient condition as if it were a necessary condition. In other words, the argument assumes that because a loss of faith in government’s ability to solve problems is sufficient to cause people to lose interest in voting, that it must be what’s causing voter turnout to decrease in this case. However, there could be other conditions that are also sufficient to decrease voter turnout. So we cannot be sure that decreasing voter turnout must be due to the belief that the government can't solve the most important problems.
16.
The reasoning in the political ███████████ ████████ ██ ████ ██████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ████████
a
presumes, without providing ██████████████ ████ █████ ██ ██ █████ ██ ██████████ █████ ███████ █████ ████ ███ ██████ ████ ███ █████████ ████████ ███ ██ ██████ ██ ██████████ ██████
This describes how the argument fails to consider other possible alternative explanations for decreasing voter turnout. Instead, the author assumes that a loss of faith in government must be what’s causing it.
b
presumes, without providing ██████████████ ████ █████ ███ ██ █████████ █████████ ██ ███ ████ █████████ ████████
The argument isn’t concerned with whether or not these problems are in fact solvable. It only makes a claim about what’s causing voter turnout to decrease.
c
infers that important ████████ ███ ██ █████████ █████████ ██ ████████ █████████ ██ ██████ ████ ███ ███████ ████ █████ ████████ ██████ ██ █████████ ██ ████████ █████████ ██ ███ ██████
The argument only makes a claim about what’s causing voter turnout to decrease, not about whether any problems can or can’t be addressed. The flaw is failing to consider other possible causes.
d
undermines its claim ████ ██████ ██ ██████ ███████ █████ ███ █████████ █████████ ██ █████████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ████ ██████ ███ ████████████ ████ ███████████
People being dissatisfied with politicians does not undermine this claim; it could explain why those people don’t believe in political solutions.
e
presumes, without providing ██████████████ ████ █████ ██████ ████████ ███ ███████████ ███████ ████ ██████ ██ ███████ █████████ ██ █████████ ████████
The argument doesn’t presume that voter apathy has any particular effects; it only seeks to explain what’s causing the apathy.