Self-study
Conclusion If the natural history museum stays within this year's budget, it will be unable to stay within next year's budget, for Support renovating next year will make the museum's expenditures exceed next year's very tight budget. █████ ████ ███ ██████ ████ ████ ██ ████████ ████ ████ ██ ██ ████ ███ ██ ██ ████ █████ ███████ ████ ████ ████████ ███████████ ██ █████████████ ████████
Summary
If the museum stays within this year’s budget, it won’t stay within next year’s budget. To support this conclusion, we’re given two conditional premises:
(1) If the museum doesn’t renovate this year, it must renovate next year.
(2) If the museum renovates next year, it won’t stay within next year’s budget.
Missing Connection
The conclusion is a conditional claim involving this year’s budget, but this year’s budget doesn’t appear anywhere in the premises. Rather, the premises are all about how renovations will affect next year’s budget. So the correct answer must connect this year’s budget to those premises.
Specifically, we can reach the author’s conclusion if we assume that to stay within this year’s budget, the museum must not renovate this year. (Contrapositive: If the museum renovates this year, it must not stay within this year’s budget.)
13.
The argument's conclusion can be ████████ ████████ ██ █████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ██ ████████
a
The museum will ████ ██████ ████ ██████ ███████
This fails to show that this year’s budget affects next year’s. Because the premises don’t raise the subject of this year’s budget, staying within that budget has no effect on the argument. We still have no reason to think this year’s budget has any impact on next year’s.
b
This year's budget ██ ████ ████ ████ ██████ ███████
This compares the two budgets but fails to show that this year’s has any effect on next year’s. Because the premises don’t raise the subject of this year’s budget in any way, the relative value of that budget has no effect on the argument.
c
The museum will ███ ████████ ████ █████
This fails to introduce this year’s budget to the argument. Even if we assume (C), the premises remain completely silent on the subject of this year’s budget. So we’re given no reason to think that this year’s budget has any effect on renovations or to next year’s budget.
d
The museum will ██████ ████ ██████ ██████ ██ ██ █████████ ████ █████
Contrapositive: if the museum doesn’t exceed this year’s budget (i.e., if it stays within budget), it must not renovate this year. And from the premises, if the museum doesn’t renovate this year, it must renovate next year, meaning it won’t stay within next year’s budget.
e
The museum will ████ ██████ ████ ██████ ██████ ██ ██ ████ ███ ████████ ████ █████
This gets the sufficient and necessary conditions reversed. To reach the conclusion, we want an assumption that makes staying within this year’s budget sufficient for exceeding next year’s. But according to (E), staying within this year’s budget isn’t sufficient for anything.
