Self-study
Schmidt: In enforcing township rules on how homeowners maintain their property, it is a mistake to encourage residents to report violations by their neighbors. █████ ██ █████████ ███ ████████ █████ █████████ ███ █████ ██ ████ █████ ██ ██████
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Stimulus Summary
Schmidt argues that we shouldn't encourage residents to report their neighbors' violations of property rules. This is based on Schmidt's belief that such encouragement would harm relations between neighbors and lead to reports based on spite.
Chandha disagrees with Schmidt's recommendation. She thinks it's not a mistake to encourage residents to report their neighbors' violations. As support, Chandha points out that if we don't have any rules about maintaining property, one bad homeowner can ruin the neighborhood.
Analysis
Chandha's response doesn't track what Schmidt actually argues. Chandha tries to rebut Schmidt's argument by pointing out the disaster that would result from having no rules. But Schmidt's not arguing that we should get rid of the property rules. He's saying that we shouldn't encourage people to rat on their neighbors for violations.
It's not clear exactly how the correct answer will describe the issue, but we should go into the answers understanding that Chandha's response doesn't engage with Schmidt's argument. We might characterize what Chandha does as misinterpreting Schmidt's argument, or perhaps even addressing an issue irrelevant to Schmidt's argument.
15.
Chandha’s response is most vulnerable ██ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ████ ██
a
takes a criticism ██ ███ ███ ██ █████ ███████ █████ ███ ████████ ██ ██ █ █████████ ██ ███ █████ ██████████
This accurately describes what's flawed by Chandha's response. Schmidt provides a criticism of a particular way of enforcing homeownership property rules (enforcing by reporting neighbors' violations). But Chandha interprets this criticism as a criticism of the homeownership rules themselves. That's why she brings up the negative consequences of not having the rules. This response isn't a persuasive rebuttal to Schmidt because it doesn't engage with what Schmidt actually argues.
b
challenges the motivation ██████ ███████████ ████████ ██████ ████ ███████████ █████████
Chandha doesn't comment on Schmidt's motivation for making his argument. She never says, for example, that Schmidt wants to hide his own violations.
c
confuses a criticism ██ ███ ████████████ ██ ██████ █ ███ ██ █████ ████ █ █████████ ██ ███ ████████ ██████████ ██ ███ █████
What Chandha actually does is confuse Schmidt's criticism of one way to enforce rules (encouraging reports of neighbors' violations) with a criticism of having the rules. So (C) is wrong on two counts.
First, since Schmidt doesn't actually criticize the consequences of having the rules, there is no "criticism of having a set of rules" to confuse.
Second, Chandha mistakenly thinks Schmidt's criticism is a criticism of having rules. But she doesn't think Schmidt's criticism is of "detailed provisions" of the rules. In order for Chandha to make this confusion, she would need to respond in a way that relates to specific provisions (e.g., the colors allowed for one's house, the length of grass on one's lawn, etc.).
d
takes for granted ████ ████ ███████ █████████ ██ ██████ ██ ██████ ██ ████ ██████████ ██ ████ ██████ ██████
Chandha points out that a single homeowner "could" degrade the appearance of an entire neighborhood. But she doesn't assume that this will always happen without homeownership rules. There's nothing logically flawed about arguing against a policy by pointing out negative consequences that might occur.
e
confuses the cause ██ ███ ████████ █████ █████████ ████ █ ███████████ ██ ███ ████████ █████ █████████
Chandha's response doesn't relate to the consequences of bad feelings among neighbors. Rather, it brings up the consequences of not having homeownership property rules. So we have no reason to think Chandha confused anything with what results from bad feelings among neighbors.