Self-study
Fact v. Belief v. Knowledge
This stimulus provides an excellent (and somewhat advanced) example of the commonly-tested difference between facts, beliefs, and knowledge. This theme is so common, and recognizing it is so powerful, that if your experience of this question didn’t begin with “Ooh! This is fact v. belief shenanigans!” the takeaway is to train your ability to spot it.
In short, the citizens’ group takes a premise about facts in the world (building a business park would help the economy more than building a highway) and uses it to support conclusions about the mayor’s state of mind (this dude must not care about the economy). But just because something is true in fact doesn’t mean any given person believes it’s true.
Perhaps the mayor does care about the economy, and is simply unaware of the business park option. Or perhaps the mayor disagrees that building a business park would be better for the economy. Both these scenarios emphasize the difference between the facts on the ground and the beliefs in the mayor’s head.
3.
The argument by the citizens’ █████ ██████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████████████
a
Plainsville presently has ██ █████ ████████ ███████ ███████ ███
Neither party’s argument is at all affected by whether other highways already exist in Plainsville. Both parties begin with premises about the benefits an additional highway would bring.
b
The mayor accepts ████ █ ███ ████████ ████ █████ █████ ██ ████ ███ ████████ ████ █████ ███ ███ ████████
The distinction between fact, belief, and knowledge is common enough that you should aspire to recognize it in the stimulus and hunt for it in the answer choices, finding it expressed in (B) by the idea that the mayor must accept (i.e. agree or believe) the citizens’ group’s factual premise.
c
The new highway █████ ████ ██ ████████ ███ ███████████ █████ ████ ██████████ ███ █████████
(C) is wrong because “no other benefits” is way too broad, mainly because it includes non-economic benefits. In fact, the citizens’ group’s conclusion that the mayor is motivated by non-economic factors actively suggests the existence of non-economic benefits stemming from the highway’s construction.
(C) would be pretty close if it said “the new highway would have no economic benefits…other than attracting new business.” Challenging that assumption would mean there might be other factors that, all things considered, make the highway better for the economy than the business park.
d
The mayor is ████████ ██ ███ ████████ ███ ███ ███ ███████ ██████████ █████ ████ ███ ████ ████████
This is a random additional fact that’s entirely unmoored from anything in the stimulus. Perhaps it’s useful here to recall that you can take a most strongly supported lens on necessary assumption questions as well – correct answers must be implied by the stimulus.
e
Plainsville’s economy will ███ ██ ██████ ██████ █ ███ ████████ ████ ██ ███ ████ ██████████ ██ ███ ███████████ █████ ██ ██████
The citizens’ group makes a relative claim – a business park would help the economy more than a highway would.
(E) puts a absolute claim in their mouths – a highway would not help the economy at all.
The citizen’s group does not need to support (E)’s much more extreme position for their argument to succeed.