Self-study
Politician: Over the next decade, our city will be replacing all of its street signs with signs that are designed for improved readability. ███ █████ ██ ███ ██ ███████████ █████ ███ ███████ ██████ ██████████ ███ ███ ████ ██ █ ████████ █████ ██ ████ ███ ██████
Summarize Argument
The politician starts with a factual statement: over the next decade, the city will be replacing all its street signs with signs designed to be more readable. Then, based on a single premise — no one is complaining about the current signs — the politician derives his conclusion, which is a value judgment about the city's project: it is a "colossal waste" of time and money.
Points for Evaluation
The politician's argument assumes that people's complaints are an essential metric for determining whether a project is wasteful or not. This is a big assumption: people could just not be complaining because they're used to the current signs, even while replacing the signs with more readable ones will have major benefits, say, on traffic flow. Or maybe people don't have a way to effectively voice complaints to the city government. So to evaluate this argument, it would be useful to know whether citizens' complaints are actually relevant to determining the wastefulness of a project.
Notice also that the politician's value judgment — the project is a "colossal waste" — is a statement about net benefit. The politician is suggesting that the amount of time and money that will be committed to this project is substantial enough, and the benefits small enough, that the project qualifies as a "colossal waste". But if this project actually requires a very small amount of time and money, it would be harder to support the politician's conclusion. So another point that would be useful to know about in evaluating this argument is whether the use of resources, compared to the benefits received, is significant enough to count not just as a "waste", but specifically a major or "colossal" waste.
17.
Which one of the following █████ ██ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ██ ██████████ ███ ██████████████ █████████
a
What features of ███ ███ ██████ █████ ███████ ███ ███████████ ██ ███ ██████
Since we already know from the premises that these signs are designed for "improved readability", it doesn't help us evaluate the argument to know what specific features of the signs — color, font, etc. — make them more readable. We know that they are somehow designed to be more readable: to decide whether or not it is a colossal waste to install these new signs, we want to know whether improved readability is enough of a benefit to outweigh the time and money used to install them. Answering this question wouldn't tell us that.
b
Are the new ██████ █████ ████████████ ████ █████████ ██ ███████████ ████ ███ ███████ ██████ █████ █████
First, notice that this question talks about the cost of manufacturing the signs. The politician only mentions the cost of "installing" the signs. It's not clear that the cost of installation necessarily includes the cost of manufacturing, so it's not clear that this question would necessarily help us evaluate the politician's claim.
But even if we assume that the cost of manufacturing is included in the cost of installation, and even if we answer this question "yes", meaning the new signs are much more expensive to manufacture than the current ones were, this question still isn't very useful. It's important to see that what determines if this project is a "colossal waste" or not isn't just whether the new signs will cost more to manufacture or install than the current ones, but whether the cost of the new signs — whatever that is — is balanced out by benefits provided by the new signs. So even if the new signs are more expensive both to manufacture and to install than the current ones were, it would be hard to call this expense a "waste" if the new signs provided equivalent benefits to the city, compared to the current signs — reduced traffic, for example, or less frequent accidents. To evaluate the politican's claim, we also need to know about the benefits provided by the new signs compared to the status quo. Just knowing how the cost of the new signs compares to that of the current ones doesn't tell us anything, so this question doesn't help us.
c
What percentage of ███ ██████ █████ ████ ███ ████ ███████ ████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██ ████████ ████████████
This is important to know. If the city already replaces many signs each year in the course of ordinary maintenance, then the city is already spending time and money on swapping out signs. So it seems much less likely that putting up these new signs, even if it costs slightly more, will constitute, on net, a "colossal waste" of resources. If the city replaces few or none of its signs each year, then the city is starting a brand-new project that no one has asked for. This doesn't necessarily strengthen the politician's claim — we still don't know if the time and money involved count as a "colossal waste" — but it at least leaves it neutral. Because answering this question can help us evaluate the strength of the politician's argument, this is the correct answer.
d
Do any other ██████ ████ ██ ███████ █████ ██████ █████ ████ █████ ████████ ███ ████████ ████████████
We’re not interested in other cities. Knowing what other cities plan to do, presumably based on different budgets and different needs, tells us nothing about whether or not it is a "colossal waste" for this city to install the new signs.
e
Were experts consulted ████ ███ ███ ██████ █████ ████ █████████
Answering this question "yes" might seem to support the idea that these signs will provide some benefit. But the signs could still provide benefits even if experts weren't consulted, and to decide whether or not installing these signs is a "colossal waste," which is a statement about net result, it's not enough just to know whether or not there are benefits from these signs. We need to know how those benefits compare to the amount of time and money committed to installing the signs — and even if there are no benefits, we need to know whether the time and money used are substantial enough to count as a colossal waste. So answering this question "yes" or "no" doesn't help us evaluate the politician's claim.