Critical Reasoning

Rotelle: You are too old to address effectively the difficult issues facing the country, such as nuclear power, poverty, and pollution.
Sims: I don’t want to make age an issue in this campaign, so I will not comment on your youth and inexperience.

Rotelle is committed to which one of the following?

(A) Many old people cannot effectively address the difficult issues facing the country.
(B) Those at least as old as Sims are the only people who cannot effectively address the difficult issues facing the country.
(C) Some young people can effectively address the difficult issues facing the country.
(D) If anyone can effectively address the difficult issues facing the country, that person must be younger than Sims.
(E) Addressing the difficult issues facing the country requires an understanding of young people’s points of view.

is it B?

very confusing. between A and E. i would go with A.

Adding one more question to it

Sims does which one of the following?
(A) demonstrates that Rotelle's claim is incorrect
(B) avoids mentioning the issue of age
(C) proposes a way to decide which issues are important.
(D) shows that Rotelle's statement is self-contradictory
(E) fails to respond directly to Rotelle's claim

Hmmm this is a tough one, but IMO, E for the first part and D for the second part.

I was going between A and E for the first part, but for some reason A just doesn't settle well with me. R tells S that because of his old age alone, he is not equipped to deal with the problems that face this country. Answer A states that "Many" old people cannot effectively do the job, not "All". The question asks which idea is R committed to, so to me this signals that E could be the better answer choice since E operates as the opposite of what R said to S ("Old people can't effectively address problems because of their age - therefore, a younger perspective is essential if old age is a factor that's dispositive of the ability to address these issues effectively").

Think about it like this too - If R was committed to the idea that "Many old people" cannot effectively do it, then would he use age as the sole reason (in the stimulus at least...) for saying S isn't qualified? Possibly, but what if S isn't one of the incompetent old people? What if he's not included in the "Many" category? For A to be right to me, it would have to say ALL old people cannot effectively do the job. E essentially says this, except says the opposite by saying A young perspective is Necessary.


Question 2: D

R says how age is the limiting factor for S. S responds by saying that he's got it mixed up - that with age brings experience and the ability to deal with issues. R's contradictory statement is that R's age lends him the ability to deal with the problems, even though a young age suggests no experience.

OAs are

D for 1st and E for 2nd

tohellandback wrote:OAs are

D for 1st and E for 2nd

Do I get credit for having them reversed? Lol.

Hmm... I guess you can still apply some of that logic from my post above to get to the answer D. I guess I made too many inferences for my answer choices! Someone else care to explain in a better way?

cameronwu wrote:

tohellandback wrote:OAs are

D for 1st and E for 2nd

Do I get credit for having them reversed? Lol.

Hmm... I guess you can still apply some of that logic from my post above to get to the answer D. I guess I made too many inferences for my answer choices! Someone else care to explain in a better way?

For 1)



I had to cross off A b/c it says "many old people": Rotelle is specifically referring to Sims and people "too old" like him. I think this somewhat of an over generalization.

I had to cross off B b/c again over generalization. Rotelle refers to Sims directly. He might indirectly refer to old people cannot make effective judgment, but he doesn't explicitly state that.

C is out since Rotelle doesn't make any claim about young people. He doesn't characterize himself as "young" either.

E is out as well for the same reason C is out. There is no mention in Rotelle's side that young people effectively address this issue. Out of scope.

D is the only one left standing by POE.

2) I got this one wrong anyway...lol

Answer is clearly A here.