Self-study
Conclusion The new agriculture bill will almost surely fail to pass. ███ ███████ ██ ███ █████ ███████ ████ ██████ ████ ████ ██████ ███
Argument Summary
The author predicts that the new agriculture bill will almost surely fail to pass. The reason? The leaders of all major parties have stated that they oppose it. In other words, the author is treating party leaders' opposition as strong evidence that the bill won't pass.
Anticipation
To strengthen this argument, we want to bolster the connection between the premise (party leaders oppose the bill) and the conclusion (the bill will fail). The key gap is that we don't know whether party leaders' opposition actually translates into the bill's defeat. What if party members regularly vote against their leaders' wishes?
So we're looking for information that makes the party leaders' opposition a more reliable indicator that the bill won't pass. For example, something suggesting that party members tend to follow their leaders' positions on legislation would make the author's reasoning stronger. But let's keep an open mind, because correct answers on Strengthen questions are often hard to predict.
21.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███ ████ ███████ ███ ███ ██████████ ████ ███ ███████████ ████ ████ ████ ██ █████
a
Most bills that ████ ███ ████ █████████ ██ ████ ███ ██████ ██ █ █████ █████ ████ ███ ████ ██████ ████ ████
This tells us that most bills lacking support from even one major party leader have not passed. Our bill is in an even worse position: all major party leaders oppose it, which means it certainly lacks support from even one leader. So our bill falls into the category of bills that, historically, usually don't pass. This strengthens the prediction that the agriculture bill will fail.
b
Most bills that ████ ███ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ████ ███ █████████ ██ ████ ███ ██████ ██ █ █████ ██████
This tells us something about bills that didn't pass: most of them lacked support from any member of a major party. But we only know about the leaders of the major parties, not the members. We don't know whether any rank-and-file members of major parties support the agriculture bill. Even setting that aside, (B) describes what's true of bills that failed, not what predicts failure. Knowing that most bills that failed had a certain trait doesn't tell us that bills with that trait are likely to fail.
c
If the leaders ██ ███ █████ ███████ ███████ ███ ███ ███████████ █████ ██ ████ ████ ████ ████
This tells us what would happen if all major party leaders endorsed the bill. But they don't endorse it. They oppose it. Knowing what would happen in a hypothetical scenario that's the opposite of our actual situation doesn't help us predict what will happen in the actual situation.
d
Most bills that ████ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ████ ███ ███████████ █████████ ██ ███ ███████ ██ ███ █████ ████████
We want to know that most bills that haven’t been supported by a major leader haven’t passed. But learning about most bills that have been passed doesn’t help connect the premise to the conclusion.
e
Most bills that ████ ████ ██████ ████ ███ ████ █████████ ██ ██ █████ ███ ██████ ██ █ █████ ██████
This is a tempting trap. You might read (E) and think of it like a conditional: "If a bill passes, then it had support from at least one party leader." If that were a true conditional, we could take the contrapositive: "If a bill doesn't have support from at least one party leader, then it won't pass." And since the agriculture bill has no party leader support, we could conclude it won't pass.
But (E) doesn't say all bills that passed had a leader's support. It says most. And "most" statements don't have contrapositives. "Most bills that passed had a leader's support" doesn't tell us anything about the likelihood of passage for bills that don't have a leader's support. Maybe those bills pass at similar rates, or maybe they almost never pass. We just don't know. (A) is stronger because it directly tells us the track record of bills like ours: bills without any party leader support usually don't pass.