Q23 - Political candidates' speeches are

[dan]

23. (D)
Question Type: Identify the Flaw
The author assumes that if promises and expressions of good intentions are made in order to get elected that they CANNOT at the same time be reliable. This isn’t necessarily true, is it? Imagine a politician who says: "I promise to fight crime." Perhaps she knows that this promise will help her get elected, but perhaps the promise is actually one she plans to act on when elected. The two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. Answer (D) expresses the fact that the author overlooks this possibility.

(A) is tempting but incorrect. The argument does NOT make this presumption. In fact, the author assumes the exact reverse of this statement.
(B) is out of scope (never kept by anyone under any circumstance?).
(C) is incorrect because this argument does not use any cause and effect relationship.
(E) is out of scope (worthiness is not at issue _ the issue is whether the promises are reliable).


#officialexplanation

[tara_amber1]

Can someone elaborate on the what (D) actually says? Or in other words, translate into plain English. Having trouble identifying what exactly is the flaw here. I picked (E) because everything else didn't seem to fall into place.

[StephanieS945]

Hi Tara, hopefully I can help here.

Another way of to think or phrase (D) in your head: The author's argument hinges or assumes (keyword: "overlooks the fact") that a promise is not reliable if the person who made it had an ulterior motive. In this case, the "ulterior motive" correlates to the selfish motivations the authors attributes to Political candidates. Choice (D) has just added a sneaky negative saying that the author "overlooks the fact that a promise need not be unreliable just because the person who made it had an ulterior motive for doing so. Hence, (D) is correct because this is the flaw in the authors reasoning - that a reliable promise can't exist if the person making it had ulterior motives ( getting elected ---> selfish motives)