Self-study
Politician: It has been proposed that the national parks in our country be managed by private companies rather than the government. █ ███████ █████████████ ██ ███ ██████████████████ ████████ ███ █████████ █████████ ██ ████████ ███████████ █████ █ ███████ ██ █████████ █████████ ██ ███████ ███████ ███ █████ ████ ███████ ██████████ ███ █████████████ ██ ███ ████████ █████ █████ ████████ ███████ ████ ████████ ██ █████
Summarize Argument
We know the politician's conclusion is in the last sentence, marked by a "therefore": privatizing national parks will probably benefit park visitors. In support, the politician offers an analogy. Privatizing the telecommunications industry has benefited consumers, so, the politician reasons, privatizing national parks will probably benefit park visitors as well.
Notable Assumptions
Any argument by analogy assumes that the two situations being compared are in fact analogous--in other words, that there are no relevant differences between them that would cause the analogy to break down. So this argument assumes, for example, that national parks are not currently being run at peak efficiency, and therefore that they have room to improve as the telecommunications industry did. This also assumes that there are a variety of companies interested in the national parks who would compete with each other, as in the telecommunications scenario. If only one company is interested in or able to run the national parks, similar benefits might not occur as a result. Since we're trying to weaken the argument, something we expect from the clrrect answer choice would be information that causes the analogy to break down.
14.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███████ ███ ████████████ █████████
a
It would not ██ ███████████ █████████ ██ █████████ ███ ████████ █████ ████ ██ █████ ██ ██████ ██ ███ ████ ████ ███████ ███████ ███ ██████ ███ ████ ███████ ██ █████████
The stimulus doesn't say anything about what is politically expedient. While this answer choice might suggest that privatizing the parks is less likely, since few politicians would be willing to make it happen, it's important to see that the conclusion of the argument can be taken as a hypothetical statement: if the parks are privatized, then consumers will benefit. The truth of this claim doesn't depend on whether or not the parks are ever actually privatized or not, still less on whether privatization is politically expedient or not. So this answer choice doesn't weaken the argument.
b
The privatization of ███ ██████████████████ ████████ ███ ████ ███████████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ███ ██ █████████████ █████████ ████████████ ███ ████████ ███████████ ██ ████ █████████
Even if this information is correct, the basis for the analogy is just that privatizing the telecommunications industry has benefited consumers. That can still be true even if privatization has had other, more negative effects. So this doesn't break down the analogy that leads to the argument's conclusion, and doesn't weaken the argument.
c
The vast majority ██ ██████ ████████ ███ ████████ █████ ███ ███████ ██ █████████ ██ █████████ ███ ██████████ ██ █████ ██████
This is irrelevant. Whether or not people are aware of proposals to privatize parks doesn't change whether or not such proposals would benefit them if implemented.
d
Privatizing the national █████ █████ ███████ █ ████ ███████ ██████ ██ █████████ ██ █ ████ ███████ ██████ ████ ███ ███ █████████████ ██ ███ ██████████████████ █████████
This answer choice is tricky. Notice that we don't know if the number of consumers is \"much smaller\" because it is only a small subset of national park visitors, or because the whole set of national park visitors is much smaller than the number of people who use telecommunications services. Similarly, perhaps benefiting \"to a much smaller extent\" is inevitable, since most people don't go to natural parks as often as they use telecommunications services. In any case, the conclusion is just about consumers benefiting, not the extent of the benefit. Since consumers still benefit in this scenario, this answer choice doesn't work to weaken the argument.
e
The privatization of ███ ████████ █████ █████ ███████ ████ ████ ███████████ ███████ █████████ █████████ ████ ███ ███ █████████████ ██ ███ ██████████████████ █████████
This tells us that there wouldn't be as much competition in the national parks scenario as there was in the telecommunications one. But competition between companies was the specific mechanism that brought benefits to consumers in the telecommunications scenario. In other words, since that mechanism will be missing for the national parks, we have reasons to believe that the same thing would not happen in that scenario. The analogy breaks down, and the argument is weakened.