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In switzerland, one of europe's smallest nations

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by shimbal80 » Sat Nov 20, 2010 5:23 pm
In switzerland, one of europe's smallest nations, amendments to the constitution can only be initiated after a successful vote on a national referendum. In order to initiate a referendum, a citizen must merely collect 100,000 voters' signatures, in support of a given issue, over a period of 18 months . Clearly, the swiss governemnet must be spending a lot of time amending the country's constitution.

Which of the following premises, if true, best supports the conclusion?

A) swiss citizens initiate many referenda every year
B) It is easy for a citizen to collect 100,000 signatures for a constitutional amendments within 18 month.
C) The swiss governemnt spends much more time on constitutional amendments than governemnts of other country
D) All referenda must be initiated by swiss citizens over 18 years old
E) Referenda requiring constitutional amendments are both frequent and popular with swiss voters

Source : Quiz bank Kaplan
Answer E

My question is how the right answer strengthens the conclusion? the conclusion is about spending time but this answer is not related to time. if it is, why not a or b?
Please explain.

Thanks in advance

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by Tani » Sat Nov 20, 2010 7:14 pm
A is out because it only talks about initiating referenda, not about actually amending the constitution. The constitution only gets amended if there are 100,000 signatures AND a winning vote in the referendum.

B is out because it only says it's easy to get signatures. It doesn't tell us whether anyone would actually bother.

"E) Referenda requiring constitutional amendments are both frequent and popular with Swiss voters"
"Frequent" tells us there are a lot of referenda. "Popular" tells us that people support those referenda. Therefore, many referenda are passed and the government must respond by amending the constitution.
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by pesfunk » Sat Nov 20, 2010 11:32 pm
Nice Catch Tani.... Option B is so tempting....but E is pretty much a combination of A and B and is the "BEST" option which supports the conclusion.
Tani Wolff - Kaplan wrote:A is out because it only talks about initiating referenda, not about actually amending the constitution. The constitution only gets amended if there are 100,000 signatures AND a winning vote in the referendum.

B is out because it only says it's easy to get signatures. It doesn't tell us whether anyone would actually bother.

"E) Referenda requiring constitutional amendments are both frequent and popular with Swiss voters"
"Frequent" tells us there are a lot of referenda. "Popular" tells us that people support those referenda. Therefore, many referenda are passed and the government must respond by amending the constitution.
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by shimbal80 » Sun Nov 21, 2010 6:36 am
Tani Wolff - Kaplan wrote:A is out because it only talks about initiating referenda, not about actually amending the constitution. The constitution only gets amended if there are 100,000 signatures AND a winning vote in the referendum.

B is out because it only says it's easy to get signatures. It doesn't tell us whether anyone would actually bother.

"E) Referenda requiring constitutional amendments are both frequent and popular with Swiss voters"
"Frequent" tells us there are a lot of referenda. "Popular" tells us that people support those referenda. Therefore, many referenda are passed and the government must respond by amending the constitution.
Thanks Tani,

I understand that E is better than a and b. But I can not understand the relation between e and conclusion. conclusion is talking about spending a lot of time while e is talking about popular and frequent. we should find the answer that talking about time. So I think all of answers are incorrect.
Could you correct me?

Thanks in advance
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by Tani » Sun Nov 21, 2010 8:05 am
For the government to spend time amending the constitution several things must happen.

1. people must try to get 100,000 signatures.
2. people must actually get those signatures
3. the referendum must be held, and
4. the referendum must pass.

Not until the last one occurs does the government spend time amending the constitution.

A doesn't affect the time because there is no indication that referenda are held, only that people start petitions (step1).

B only says citizens could get signatures if they tried. It doesn't even tell us that they tried, much less that they got enough for a referendum or that the referendum passed. (Meaning step 2 would be easy if someone actually tried step one.

Neither of these even gets us to step three, much less step four.

E tells us referenda are frequent (getting us to step 3 - more than once) and popular (getting us to step 4). Once we hit step four, the government has work to do.
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