Critical Reasoning

More than a year ago, the city announced that police would crack down on illegally parked cars and that resources would be diverted from writing speeding tickets to ticketing illegally parked cars. But no crackdown has taken place. The police chief claims that resources have had to be diverted from writing speeding tickets to combating the city"Ÿs staggering drug problem. Yet the police are still writing as many speeding tickets as ever. Therefore, the excuse about resources being tied up in fighting drug-related crime simply is not true.
The conclusion in the passage depends on the assumption that
(A) every member of the police force is qualified to work on combating the city"Ÿs drug problem
(B) drug-related crime is not as serious a problem for the city as the police chief claims it is
(C) writing speeding tickets should be as important a priority for the city as combating drug-related crime
(D) the police could be cracking down on illegally parked cars and combating the drug problem without having to reduce writing speeding tickets
(E) the police cannot continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever while diverting resources to combating drug-related crime

IMO A

IMO:E

+1 for E

newton9 wrote:More than a year ago, the city announced that police would crack down on illegally parked cars and that resources would be diverted from writing speeding tickets to ticketing illegally parked cars. But no crackdown has taken place. The police chief claims that resources have had to be diverted from writing speeding tickets to combating the city"Ÿs staggering drug problem. Yet the police are still writing as many speeding tickets as ever. Therefore, the excuse about resources being tied up in fighting drug-related crime simply is not true.
The conclusion in the passage depends on the assumption that
(A) every member of the police force is qualified to work on combating the city"Ÿs drug problem
(B) drug-related crime is not as serious a problem for the city as the police chief claims it is
(C) writing speeding tickets should be as important a priority for the city as combating drug-related crime
(D) the police could be cracking down on illegally parked cars and combating the drug problem without having to reduce writing speeding tickets
(E) the police cannot continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever while diverting resources to combating drug-related crime

Conclusion: Yet the police are still writing as many speeding tickets as ever. Therefore, the excuse about resources being tied up in fighting drug-related crime simply is not true.

Assumption: Police is still writing as many no of tickets as before, which mean resources are not being diverted from the writing speeding tickets to fighting drug-related crime, otherwise no of tickets would have been decreased from the current level.

So IMO E

P: resources to be transferred from writing tickets to ticketing illegally parked cars.
Resources had to be diverted to deal with drug prob.
No of speeding tickets has remained same

C : Since no of speeding tickets is same, resources being tied up in drug-fighting is not true.

A: Police cannot deal with drugs and issue the same no of speeding tickets at the same time.

A) I think this weakens the argument making the excuse more likely.
B) We are not concerned about the seriousness of the problem
C) Not concerned about the relative priority
E) If we negate E, police cannot write as many speeding tickets while combating drug-related crimes.This weakens the conclusion that excuse that resources being tied up in fighting drug-related crimes is more likely.

OA E

well guyzzz i solved this assumption question and i found E as not the answer. According to me if you negate the option E then it strengthens the argument. And i found the answer to be option B.
See guyzz i am not an expert so kindly help me in understanding if i am going wrong. Please reply asap......

Can any of the experts please help in this question??

Please explain why you think thst if E were false, the argument would be strengthened.

I have a feeling that you misread E as 'the police can continue...'

Yes you are right after negating it i wrote it as : the police cannot continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever while diverting resources to combating drug-related crime. Is this not right???