Critical Reasoning

Politician: My opponent says our zoning laws too strongly promote suburban single-family dwellings and should be changed to encourage other forms of housing like apartment buildings. Yet he lives in a house in the country. His lifestyle contradicts his own argument, which should therefore not be taken seriously.
The politician's reasoning is most vulnerable to criticism on the ground that
(A) Its characterization of the opponent's lifestyle reveals the politician's own prejudice against constructing apartment buildings.
(B) It neglects the fact that apartment buildings can be built in the suburbs just as easily as in the center of the city.
(C) It fails to mention the politician's own living situation
(D) Its discussion of the opponent's lifestyle is irrelevant to the merits of the opponent's argument.
(E) It ignores the possibility that the opponent may have previously lived in an apartment building.

imo d

IMO E
I feel they dont talk about merits at all!!
Whats the OA?

IMO A

IMO D

Whats the OA?

garima99 wrote:Politician: My opponent says our zoning laws too strongly promote suburban single-family dwellings and should be changed to encourage other forms of housing like apartment buildings. Yet he lives in a house in the country. His lifestyle contradicts his own argument, which should therefore not be taken seriously.
The politician's reasoning is most vulnerable to criticism on the ground that
(A) Its characterization of the opponent's lifestyle reveals the politician's own prejudice against constructing apartment buildings.
(B) It neglects the fact that apartment buildings can be built in the suburbs just as easily as in the center of the city.
(C) It fails to mention the politician's own living situation
(D) Its discussion of the opponent's lifestyle is irrelevant to the merits of the opponent's argument.
(E) It ignores the possibility that the opponent may have previously lived in an apartment building.

IMO : D
Politician is not able to defend himself on the argument given by his opponent.

C.

If the politician is going to say "He wants to build these, but he lives here so don't listen to him as he naturally doesn't support that structure. I want to build these." - logically I'd ask where do you live?

D - Don't see how that is irrelevant.

D for sure.

Its the problem of the locality and the oppenent is not the nly one in the public of the locality.
Politician's stand is irrelevant

gmatblood wrote:D for sure.

Its the problem of the locality and the oppenent is not the nly one in the public of the locality.
Politician's stand is irrelevant

But the passage says nothing about the opponents argument.

The correct answer is D. This is a standard type of flawed argument. Please learn it and apply it.

Here is how it goes. "My opponent is _____, therefore his argument if flawed."

You can see that this is not a logical argument. You must separate the person from what they say.

It may seem relevant in this (clever) argument because they made the detail about the person seem relevant. But is it really? No. It does not matter that he lives in a house and is advocating for more apartments. At least, not on the GMAT!!

David@VeritasPrep wrote:The correct answer is D. This is a standard type of flawed argument. Please learn it and apply it.

Here is how it goes. "My opponent is _____, therefore his argument if flawed."

You can see that this is not a logical argument. You must separate the person from what they say.

It may seem relevant in this (clever) argument because they made the detail about the person seem relevant. But is it really? No. It does not matter that he lives in a house and is advocating for more apartments. At least, not on the GMAT!!

Could you please elaborate on this...I mean how to identify this type of quetions and best way to attack.

So basically you are looking for an argument where the personal characteristics of the one making the argument are cited either for or against him.

For example if we have the argument "there are 7 billion plus people in the world and this is too many, therefore people should have fewer children." You can work with this argument, for example, you can weaken by saying that disease and famine are on the rise so more people are dying and more children will not increase the population.

What you cannot do is to try to weaken this by saying that the speaker has 7 children of his own. It might seem like a nice way to make someone shut up if you are speaking in person. Like, who are you to say this, you have 7 kids you hypocrite.

However, this is never proper logic. You must deal with the argument not the characteristics.

So, look for some argument where they are attacking (or supporting) by mentioning the person's characteristics and not the argument itself.