Self-study
Council chair: Support The traditional code of parliamentary procedure contains a large number of obscure, unnecessary rules, Support which cause us to quibble interminably over procedural details and Support so to appear unworthy of public confidence. ███████████ ███ ████ ██ ██████████ ███ ██████ █████████ ███ ███████ ██ ███ █████████ ███████ ██ ███ ████████ ██████ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████████████ ██████████ ██ ██ ██████████ ████ ██ █████ ███ █████████ █████ █████ ███ ████ ██ ██████████ ███ █████████ ███ ███████ ██████
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that we need to adopt the alternate code. This is because the traditional code contains a lot of obscure, unnecessary rules, which lead to debates over procedural details, which in turn leads to a decline in public confidence in the council. Public confidence is necessary for the council to be successful. In addition, the alternate code has been used successfully elsewhere.
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that there are no downsides to the alternate code that would outweigh the harm caused by the traditional code. The author also assumes that, if we want to avoid the problems of the traditional code, there’s no other option besides adopting the alternate code.
10.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ █████████ ██████████ ███ ███████ ███████████
a
The council's use ██ ███ ███████████ █████ ██ ███ ███████████ ████ ██ █████████████
Whether the problematic rules are used intermittently or continuously, there are still negative aspects of the traditional rule. The fact a problem might occur intermittently does not suggest the problem is minor or does not need to be fixed.
b
Those who have ███████ ███ █████████ ████ █████████ ███████ ██ ███ ██ ██ ███████ █████ ██████████ █████████████ ██ ███████████
Attempts to use the other code to confuse opponents does not suggest these attempts are successful or that they would lead to the same debates and decline in public confidence that the traditional rules lead to.
c
Revision of the ███████████ ████ ██ ████████ ████ ████ █████████ ███ ███████████ ██████
This undermines the assumption that avoiding the problem of the traditional code requires adopting the alternate one. (C) presents an alternative — if we can just remove the problematic rules from the traditional code, then it’s no longer “imperative” to adopt the alternate code.
d
It is not ██████ ██████████ ██ █████ █ █████████ ████ ██ █████ ██ ████████ ███ ████████ ███████████
We get a specific reason to think that changing codes to maintain public confidence is reasonable here — the council’s success depends on the public’s having confidence. Changing might not always be reasonable, but the author gives a specific reason to think it may be here.
e
The alternate code ████████ ███ ██████████ ████ ████ ████ ███ ████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ██ ████████████
(E) tells us that the alternate code doesn’t have many provisions that are criticized as obscure/unnecessary. This is a point in favor of the alternate code, because we know the traditional code has a “large number” of obscure/unnecessary rules.