Amal: But allocating new revenue to transportation will free up existing transportation funds for use in other areas. Thus, the new revenue will nonetheless help reduce budget shortfalls in other areas.
Speaker 1 Summary
The additional revenue from leases will not be used to reduce budget shortfalls in other budget areas. Why? Because the additional revenue will be allocated to the transportation budget.
Speaker 2 Summary
The additional revenue will help to reduce budget shortfalls in other budget areas. Why? Because allocating revenue to transportation will free up existing transportation funds for other budget areas.
Objective
We need a statement Regina and Amal disagree on. They disagree whether the new revenue from leases will help reduce other budget shortfalls. Regina thinks that the new revenue will not reduce shortfalls since it will be allocated to transportation. Amal thinks that the new revenue will reduce shortfalls indirectly by freeing up existing transportation funds for other uses.
A
there will be shortfalls in budget areas other than transportation
Neither speaker expresses an opinion on this statement. Neither Regina or Amal express whether they think shortfalls will exist.
B
the amount of money currently allocated to transportation is adequate
Neither speaker expresses an opinion on this statement. We can’t assume that either speaker thinks transportation funding is adequate solely on the basis of funds being allocated to transportation.
C
new revenue from leasing government-owned toll bridges should be allocated to transportation
Neither speaker expresses an opinion on this statement. Neither speaker addresses what they think should or should not be done.
D
new revenue allocated to transportation will result in existing transportation funds being reallocated to other areas
Regina and Amal disagree on this statement. Regina disagrees that allocation to transportation will help other budget areas. Amal agrees that it will help other budget areas indirectly by freeing up existing funds.
E
leasing government-owned toll bridges to private investors will be financially beneficial to the government
Neither speaker expresses an opinion on this statement. We can’t assume that reducing budget shortfalls in any area is financially beneficial to the government.
Summarize Argument
The author concludes that the use of ordinary dictionaries is justified in interpreting the law. This is based on an analogy to how chemists use the periodic table. The periodic table is a source of agreed-upon background information that can be useful for chemists. The author believes that ordinary dictionaries can be useful to legal interpreters trying to resolve terminological issues in the same way that periodic tables are useful for chemists
Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that the relationship between periodic tables and the problems chemists work on is relevantly similar to the relationship between ordinary dictionaries and the resolution of terminological issues.
A
The periodic table lists the properties of the elements, and presents them in a pattern to represent relations between them, while an ordinary dictionary mostly just gives an alphabetical ordering to the words it defines.
This difference concerns how the content is laid out in periodic tables and dictionaries. But this difference doesn’t have an impact on the usefulness of each item.
B
There is wide agreement about the data on the periodic table, while disagreements between the definitions in different ordinary dictionaries are likely to be relevant to legal interpretation.
This points out a difference that is relevant to the usefulness of dictionaries in resolving disputes about terms. If there are disagreements about definitions, then dictionaries aren’t useful to solving disputes in the same way that periodic tables are useful to chemists.
C
The use of a periodic table as a reference source actually came much later in history than the use of ordinary dictionaries to describe the meanings of words.
When periodic tables and dictionaries came about doesn’t impact the usefulness of a dictionary for solving disputes about terms.
D
The periodic table contains only a relatively small amount of information that could, in theory, be memorized, while the information in an ordinary dictionary is likely to be too large for any one person to know all at once.
How easy the content is to memorize doesn’t affect the usefulness of an ordinary dictionary for resolving interpretation of terms.
E
The periodic table is used primarily by chemists, while ordinary dictionaries are not used primarily by legal scholars and legal interpreters.
Whether dictionaries are currently used to resolve interpretations does not affect whether they would be useful to scholars and interpreters in the same way that a periodic table is useful to chemists.
Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
The author concludes that biologists are wrong when they think that the fossil record provides direct evidence of the course of human evolution. In other words, the fossil record does not provide direct evidence of the course of human evolution. This conclusion is based on the subsidiary conclusion that fossils can’t be interpreted objectively. As an example supporting this subsidiary conclusion, the author points out that classifying a pelvis fossil as human based on its upright posture requires assuming that apes didn’t have an upright posture.
Identify Conclusion
The conclusion is that the biologists are wrong: “Biologists are mistaken in thinking that the fossil record provides direct evidence of the course of human evolution.”
A
No early apes had pelvises that would support an upright posture.
The author doesn’t necessarily agree with this. This is an assumption the author believes we make when classifying a pelvis as human based on its upright posture. But the author suggests this assumption might be wrong; it’s not an objective interpretation.
B
The claims made by evolutionary theorists cannot be objectively tested.
The author never stated this. Although we can infer the author would agree with this statement, he never actually stated this.
C
The fossil remains of some early hominids are difficult to distinguish from those of apes.
The author never stated this. The author never comments on the difficulty of distinguishing early hominid fossils from ape fossils. Although the author indicates that distinguishing between the two involves subjective interpretation, that’s not a comment on difficulty.
D
The fossil record does not directly reveal the course of human evolution.
This is a paraphrase of the claim that biologists are mistaken in thinking that the fossil record provides direct evidence of the course of human revolution.
E
Paleontologists’ classifications of fossils are always influenced by the theories that these scientists are testing.
This is part of the author’s support. Because paleontologists’ interpretations reflect the models they want to test, the author concludes that the fossil record does not provide direct evidence of the course of human evolution.