58.4.18 Despite the efforts

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I am pretty clueless on this one. I had the answer down to C or D, and I chose D (kept it during BR). I am completely lost as to how E is the weakener, so help would be greatly appreciated. Here is my breakdown:

This is a weaken question.

Few graduate students are aware of the attempt to unionize (some are aware; most are not aware). From there, I diagrammed the rest:

Grad students MOST not aware
Grad students SOME aware‑m→believe union would not represent their interest or do a bad job pursuing those interests
Therefore, grad students‑m→disapprove. Therefore, grad students shouldn't unionize.

What I am looking for: A lot wrong with this one. First, the argument assumes that if most of a group disapprove of something, then that thing shouldn't be done; this is sort of like an appeal to the crowd fallacy. What if it is in everyone's best interest for everyone eat their vegetables, but most people don't want to do it? Second, the argument makes an invalid inference. We don't know if MOST grad students disapprove. We only know that SOME of them are aware and Most are not aware (does no awareness mean disapproval? What if they are just ignorant?) Along the same lines, the argument is assuming that believing the union would not represent their interests/believing that the union wouldn't effectively pursue their interests is the same thing as disapproval. Lastly, the argument seems to be making a pro vs. con flaw by ignoring the potential benefits/pros of unionizing. The argument only talks about the possibility that the union won't have some people's interests in mind or won't be effective. What if there are things that outweigh those potential cons? The argument doesn't even address that relevant concern.

Answer A: What long standing practice?

Answer B: Fails to exclude alternative explanations? Why does the argument need to do this? We presumably have a few reasons why the students don't like the idea.

Answer C: I had it down to this one and D. I eliminated this one because something not being a good idea isn't mentioned in the passage. Just because something "shouldn't be done" doesn't necessarily imply that that thing isn't a good idea. I think this answer choice would have been better if "not a good idea" were substituted for "not be done."

Answer I was pretty confident with this answer choice, and I kept it during BR. Doesn't the argument do this? The argument is limiting it self to the potential cons of unionizing: it might not represent the interests of people or it might do a bad job representing the interest of people. What if there are other reasons to unionize that outweigh those concerns?

Answer E: This is the correct answer, but I felt 100% confident eliminating it. Does the argument equivocate on active disapproval and lack of approval? I don't see where it does this. Sure, it blurs the distinction between active disapproval (assuming that those who are aware of the union and believe that the union won't have their interests at heart/think the union won't do an effective job disapprove) and lack of awareness, but I don't see where the argument conflates active disapproval and mere lack of approval.

Cant Get Right

D is a tricky answer because it very subtly addresses the wrong point. The author's argument concludes that the students should not unionize. This answer addresses the related but distinct issue of the reasons they should or should not unionize. The author's conclusion is not challenged by this answer choice. If confronted with it, the author could readily deflect the criticism by responding that there may be good reasons to unionize- the author never disputes that, he only references the opinions of others on this point- but the students should still not unionize because, as stated in his conclusion, the majority disapproves of the effort.

C hints at the correct answer but does not quite get there. It addresses the fact that a mistake is made concerning the majority of the students being unaware of the efforts, but does it conclude that, because of this, its a bad idea? The conclusion states "Thus, the graduate students at the university should not unionize, since the majority of them obviously disapprove of the attempt." So the author never states his opinion on this matter, and so if presented with this critique could easily defend against it.

The argument states that a majority of the grad students aren't even aware of the attempt to unionize. It goes on to conclude that because a majority disapproves of the effort, they shouldn't unionize. The question hinges on the distinction between not approving and disapproving. The majority who know nothing of the efforts to unionize are not in a position to either approve or disapprove. So, technically the author is correct that a majority does not approve, but he mistakes this majority faction's passive lack of approval for an active disapproval, and draws his conclusion from this mistake. Answer E best expresses this weakness.

Hope this helps!

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@JHAldy10 Thanks!

Would you say that this is correct? So E's correctness depends on the idea of the logical opposite between approval and not approval. The idea in the passage is that the "majority disapprove." But, all we can say about these people is that they don't approve because they are unaware. We don't know if they disapprove.