Question Type:
Flaw
Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: We shouldn't criticize the city for being overzealous in issuing parking tickets (i.e. the city is NOT being overzealous in issuing parking tickets).
Evidence: Can you imagine how much worse parking would be if we didn't enforce parking regulations?
Answer Anticipation:
This a terrible argument, and what's scary is that it sounds a lot like real life. "We shouldn't criticize Tony for eating too much. Can you imagine how much worse off he'd be if he never ate?" "We shouldn't criticize the government for being overzealous in levying taxes. Can you imagine how underfunded the government would be if it didn't charge any taxes?"
There are two separate conversations here: whether or not someone is doing too much of X vs. whether or not we'd be screwed if there were no X at all. In real life we often call this Straw Man ... the author is trying to refute a position by pretending like the alternative is a ridiculous, highly untenable position. Tony's friends would be like, "We're not saying he should never eat, obviously! We're just saying eat less." The parking ticket critics would say, "We're not arguing there should be NO parking tickets, just fewer."
Correct Answer:
E
Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Close. The author is definitely responding to a different conversation, but he's not misrepresenting the original criticism. He correctly represents it, then responds to it like an idiot. Also, it's a weird language stretch to say that criticizing the overzealousness of meter maids is a criticism about "the consequences" of the practice of enforcing parking regulations. A consequence would usually be "a necessary implication of" something, but the practice of enforcing parking tickets doesn't demand overzealousness as a consequence.
(B) This wrongly accuses the argument of having been, "Since parking enforcement officers are authority figures, we should respect their behavior."
(C) This wrongly accuses the argument of having been, "Since we've always aggressively issued parking tickets, it is good how overzealous our meter maids have been."
(D) There's nothing about cause/effect here.
(E) YES, the author is defending the overzealous ticketing by saying it's preferable to "no ticketing at all", which is a highly implausible alternative.
Takeaway/Pattern: I don't think it's an accident that (A) is (A). The best trap answer here is definitely (A), and when you read it first it's easy to get anchor bias there. To make peace with (A), you have to say that the author misrepresented the original position (as opposed to "responded to the criticism in a way that is basically irrelevant") and that the criticizing over-ticketing is a criticism about the consequences of ticketing. To make peace with (E), you just have to be cool with saying that "Not enforcing parking regulations at all" is an implausible situation. It's pretty deeply implausible to think that parking regulations would exist but that none of them would be enforced.
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