Critical Reasoning

Voters commonly condemn politicians for being insincere, but politicians often must disguise their true feelings when they make public statements. If they expressed their honest views - about, say, their party's policies - then achieving politically necessary compromises would be much more difficult. Clearly, the very insincerity that people decry shows that our government is functioning well.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines this reasoning?

A. Achieving political compromises is not all that is necessary for the proper functioning of a government.
B. Some political compromises are not in the best long-term interest of the government.
C. Voters often judge politicians by criteria other than the sincerity with which they express their views.
D. A political party's policies could turn out to be detrimental to the functioning of a government.
E. Some of the public statements made by politicians about their party's policies could in fact be sincere.

The OA is A Can some one please help to solve this one. I find the solutions to be very confusing.Experts pls help

Hey,

Here goes the reasoning for this question....

The argument states that if politicians are sincere, they would not be able to make political compromises.

Sincere----->No Political Compromises

this basically means that if they are insincere, political compromises will be possible and government would function properly.

Firstly, all of the above statements are indisputable. However,the implicit assumption is that there is nothing apart from political compromises which are important for the proper functioning of the government.

Option A states that despite achieving political compromises, the government may not function properly. If this is true, the the reasoning that 'the very
insincerity that people decry shows that our government is functioning well.' would no longer be true....

IN short....

People decry--1----->Government Insincere and achieving political compromises---2---->Gov functioning properly.

Option A states that '1' may be linked to'2' via other reasons...thus weakning the conclusion.

Neilsheth2 wrote:Voters commonly condemn politicians for being insincere, but politicians often must disguise their true feelings when they make public statements. If they expressed their honest views - about, say, their party's policies - then achieving politically necessary compromises would be much more difficult. Clearly, the very insincerity that people decry shows that our government is functioning well.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines this reasoning?

A. Achieving political compromises is not all that is necessary for the proper functioning of a government.
B. Some political compromises are not in the best long-term interest of the government.
C. Voters often judge politicians by criteria other than the sincerity with which they express their views.
D. A political party's policies could turn out to be detrimental to the functioning of a government.
E. Some of the public statements made by politicians about their party's policies could in fact be sincere.

Premise: To achieve politically necessary compromises, politicians must be insincere.
Conclusion: The very insincerity that people decry shows that our government is functioning well.

This CR assumes that the achievement of POLITICALLY NECESSARY COMPROMISES is sufficient to conclude that OUR GOVERNMENT IS FUNCTIONING WELL.
The correct answer choice will attack this assumption.

A: Achieving political compromises is NOT all that is necessary for the proper functioning of a government.
Here, OTHER FACTORS are necessary for a well-functioning government, invalidating the assumption that the achievement of POLITICALLY NECESSARY COMPROMISES is sufficient to conclude that OUR GOVERNMENT IS FUNCTIONING WELL.

The correct answer is A.

GMATGuruNY wrote:

Neilsheth2 wrote:Voters commonly condemn politicians for being insincere, but politicians often must disguise their true feelings when they make public statements. If they expressed their honest views - about, say, their party's policies - then achieving politically necessary compromises would be much more difficult. Clearly, the very insincerity that people decry shows that our government is functioning well.

Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines this reasoning?

A. Achieving political compromises is not all that is necessary for the proper functioning of a government.
B. Some political compromises are not in the best long-term interest of the government.
C. Voters often judge politicians by criteria other than the sincerity with which they express their views.
D. A political party's policies could turn out to be detrimental to the functioning of a government.
E. Some of the public statements made by politicians about their party's policies could in fact be sincere.

Premise: To achieve politically necessary compromises, politicians must be insincere.
Conclusion: The very insincerity that people decry shows that our government is functioning well.

This CR assumes that the achievement of POLITICALLY NECESSARY COMPROMISES is sufficient to conclude that OUR GOVERNMENT IS FUNCTIONING WELL.
The correct answer choice will attack this assumption.

A: Achieving political compromises is NOT all that is necessary for the proper functioning of a government.
Here, OTHER FACTORS are necessary for a well-functioning government, invalidating the assumption that the achievement of POLITICALLY NECESSARY COMPROMISES is sufficient to conclude that OUR GOVERNMENT IS FUNCTIONING WELL.

The correct answer is A.

Can you explain more about choice B? Why is not correct? I guess this is because choice B negates the necessary compromises but it doesn't destroy the critical reasoning chain, which is from necessary compromises to government function well. Is that correct?
Thanks in advance!

Crystal W wrote: Can you explain more about choice B? Why is not correct? I guess this is because choice B negates the necessary compromises but it doesn't destroy the critical reasoning chain, which is from necessary compromises to government function well. Is that correct?
Thanks in advance!

In strengthen/weaken CRs, answer choices that include the word some should be viewed with great skepticism.
some = at least one.
B can be rephrased as follows:
At least one political compromise is not in the best long-term interest of the government.
Possible implication:
The vast majority of political compromises ARE in the best long-term interest of the government, STRENGTHENING the link between political compromise and a well-functioning government.
Eliminate B.

"Voters commonly condemn politicians for being insincere, but politicians often must disguise their true feelings when they make public statements. If they expressed their honest views - about, say, their party's policies - then achieving politically necessary compromises would be much more difficult. Clearly, the very insincerity that people decry shows that our government is functioning well. "

I'm laying down my chain of thought :

Conclusion: Public's disapproval of insincerity [shown by politicians] demonstrates that government is doing well.

so, if Public is scrutinizing politicians' behaviors, this should imply that politicians will need to be more honest in making public statements and this, in turn, would make it difficult in achieving political compromises. All this implies that, because of more honest nature of politicians, govt. is doing good.

As per this, choice A seems to be an assumption rather a weakener. Could someone help where I am going wrong.

gocoder wrote:"Voters commonly condemn politicians for being insincere, but politicians often must disguise their true feelings when they make public statements. If they expressed their honest views - about, say, their party's policies - then achieving politically necessary compromises would be much more difficult. Clearly, the very insincerity that people decry shows that our government is functioning well. "

I'm laying down my chain of thought :

Conclusion: Public's disapproval of insincerity [shown by politicians] demonstrates that government is doing well.

so, if Public is scrutinizing politicians' behaviors, this should imply that politicians will need to be more honest in making public statements.

The portion in red is not supported by the passage.
According to the passage, the insincerity decried by the public serves a purpose: it facilitates politically necessary compromises.
The passage does not use this premise to imply that politicians should be more honest.
Just the opposite.
If anything, the passage suggests that politicians should CONTINUE to be insincere, since this insincerity -- according to the conclusion -- indicates that the government is functioning well.

Thanks Mitch! I've caught the gist now

Public decry ...why ? because politicians are insincere ..why ? so that politicians make political[necessary] compromises easily. Thus public decry helps good functioning of govt.

Choice A weakens this link between political compromises that politicians make and the good functioning of govt.