PT5.S1.Q21 - major political scandal

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Can someone explain that why is D wrong and why is E right?

CFC152436

Definitely a tricky question. Stimulus isn't overly complicated, but the answers choices are wordy and somewhat convoluted. Process of elimination is probably your best bet to get the right answer in a timely manner.

Stimulus:
1. If voters blame a scandal on all parties equally, then all of the incumbents, regardless of what party they are affiliated with, will be reelected.
2. If voters blame one party in particular for the scandal, then the incumbents from that particular party will be defeated.
3. We need a principle that explains these two phenomenon.

Answers:

D. Not sure how this helps to explain / justify / resolve our two phenomenon. Seems out of scope and a little irrelevant. That withstanding, we can eliminate this one right off the bat because of the subordinate clause: "but whether those incumbents should be voted out of office depends on who their challengers are." The passage doesn't suggest that the identity of the challenger is important, nor does it talk about what "should" happen (as opposed to what "does" happen. Subtle is/ought distinction here).

E. Tricky wording here. Rephrasing the answer should help:

"When major political scandals are less the responsibility of individual incumbents than of the parties to which they belong, whatever party was responsibile must be penalized when possible"
is translated to:
"when major political scandals are blamed on a particular party instead of on individual incumbents from multiple parties, the party in question must be penalized (in other words, its incumbents must lose their elections). This explains the voter behavior talked about in the stimulus. I admit its not the greatest of answers, but, given the fact that A-D are all out of scope, E is the best we have. Some of the early LR questions are weird like this - definitely prefer the newer sections as composed to the older ones.

6jellies

I picked D too! Reviewing it, I think you can initially eliminate it because it says the blame is placed on the incumbents, not the parties. I agree with the previous person's comment in that the idea of the challenger is not really discussed in the stimulus, though I disagree with the is/ought. This question choice is about finding a principle (an "ought") to explain an action/event (an "is"). That being said, those distinctions are important to pay attention to, but they depend on the question type as well.