Self-study
Pundit: Conclusion Our city made a mistake when it sold a private company the rights to assess and collect parking fees. ███ ███████ ███████ ██████ ███████ ████ ███ ██ ███ ████ ████ ██ ████ ███████ ███ ███████ ████ ████ ██ ████ ███ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ███ ███████ ███ █████ ██ ███ ████ ███ ███ ████ ███ ███████ ████ ████ █████ █████ ████ ████ ██ ███ █████
Summary
The author concludes that it was a mistake for the city to sell to a private company the right to assess and collect parking fees.
This is based on an intermediate conclusion: if the city had not sold the rights to assessing and collecting parking fees, then the money the private company was able to collect from parking fees would have gone to the city.
That intermediate conclusion is based on a premise: the private company that purchased the rights raised parking fees and has been able to get profits that are far higher than the price it paid the city for the rights.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that if the city kept the rights, the city would have raised parking fees and been able to collect those fees. (This overlooks the possibility that the city might have kept parking fees the same, or might not have been able to generate as much revenue from parking as the private company was able to.)
1.
The pundit's argument requires the ██████████ ████
a
other private companies █████ ████ ████ ███████ ██ ███ ███ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ███ ███████ ███████ ████
Not necessary, because even if other private companies would NOT have been willing to buy the rights, that doesn’t change anything about what the city would have been able to do had the city kept the rights.
b
the city could ████ ██████ ███████ ████ ███ ██ ███ ████ ███ ██████
Necessary, because if it were not true — if the city could NOT have raised parking fees if it had kept the rights — then we have no reason to think that the city would have been able to collect the same amount of money from the parking rights as the company was able to.
c
municipal functions like █████████ ███ ██████████ ███████ ████ ██████ ██████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██ ███ ████████████ ██ ████████
Not necessary, because what “should” be handled by cities is not relevant. The argument concerns what would have happened had the city kept the rights; what should or should not be handled by a city has no impact.
d
the revenue from ███████ ████ ██ ███ ███ ████ ██████ ████ ██████ ████ ██ ████████ ██ ███████ ███ █████ ███ ███████ ████
Not necessary, because the argument doesn’t concern whether raising parking fees is a good idea. The argument concerns what would have happened had the city kept the rights; what factors need to be considered when raising fees is irrelevant.
e
private companies assess ███ ███████ ███████ ████ ████ ███████████ ████ ██████ ██
(E) would undermine the argument, so it’s not a necessary assumption. If private companies assess and collect parking fees more efficiently, that raises the possibility the city would not have been able to collect as much money as the private company was able to.