Self-paced
Saunders: Everyone at last week’s neighborhood association meeting agreed that the row of abandoned and vandalized houses on Carlton Street posed a threat to the safety of our neighborhood. █████████ ██ ███ ███ ████████ ████ ███████ ███ ██████ ████ ████ ██████████ ████ ███████ ████ ██████ █████ ██ █████ ████ ██ ███ ███████████ ██ ████████ ████ ████ ███████ ████ █████████ █████ ██████████ █████ ███ ████ ███ ███████████ █ ████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ███ ████████████ ████ ██████████ ███ ████████████ ███████ ██ ███ ██████████ █████████ ████████ ██████ ████ ███ █████████ ███ ███████ ███████████ ████ █████ ███ ████ █████ ███ ███████ ████ ███ ███████ █████ ███ ██████ ██ ██████ ██ ██████████████ ███ ██████ ████ ██████
Argument Breakdown
The stimulus offers the context of a neighborhood dispute over what to do with some abandoned houses. Most people favor demolishing the buildings, which is what ended up happening. However, a minority of people had preferred trying to rehabilitate the buildings. Our speaker, Saunders, concludes that the pro-demolition majority were correct and the rehabilitators were wrong. Why? Because the demolition strategy ultimately proved successful.
The problem is, just because the demolition strategy worked out, that doesn't mean rehabilitation would have failed. Saunders acts as though only one of the strategies could have possibly succeeded. But for all we know, rehabilitation could also have worked—it's possible to have multiple routes to success.
21.
Saunders’ reasoning is flawed because ██
a
relies on fear ██████ ████ ██ ████████ ██ ████████ ███ ████████████ ███████████ ██ ██████ ███ ██████ █████████ ██ ███████████ █████████
The argument doesn't discuss why exactly the majority of the neighborhood association supported demolition over rehabilitation. We certainly don't know that it was because of intimidation. (A) fails to accurately describe the argument.
b
fails to establish ████ █████ ██ ██████ ███ █████ ███████ ███ ████ █████ ███ █████ ██ ██████████ ██ ██████ ███ ██████████████ ███ ██████
If anything, (B) would be a flaw with the pro-rehabilitation group's argument, not Saunders' argument. Saunders takes the position that rehabilitation would have failed; establishing that there were ready and willing rehabilitators around would only weaken Saunders' argument.
c
mistakenly equates an ███████ ██ █████ ██████ ███████ ████ ███ ████████ ██ █████████ ██████ ███████
Saunders doesn't think that public support for demolition is universal, just majoritarian. In the argument, Saunders
d
offers no evidence ████ ███ ██████ █████████ ██ ███████████ █████████ █████ ███ ████ █████████ ██ ██ ███ ████ █████ ███ ██████
Saunders concludes that rehabilitation wouldn't have fixed the problem. But the only support for this is that demolition was ultimately successful. That doesn't tell us what would have happened if rehabilitation had been attempted—maybe it also would have worked.
e
does not specify ███ ███████ ██████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ████████████ ██████ ██████████ █████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██████
The supposed threat posed by the houses acts as context for the argument, which is really about the strategy used to address that threat. The exact nature of the threat isn't important unless it tells us whether rehabilitation would have worked—which it can't without more details about rehabilitation.