Q4 - Essayist: Politicians deserve protection

[hwsitgoing]

I am having a bit of trouble with question 4. I see how choice E would weaken the argument by implying the journalism about politician's personality flaws are not trivial since they can effect job performance, but how does A or C strengthen the argument? They both seem irrelevant to the conclusion.

Thanks!

[demetri.blaisdell]

This question isn't very difficult, but the wrong answer choices are quite challenging. Let me know if you agree with my analysis.

I diagrammed the argument core like this:

Prying causes capable people to not go in to politics and journalists to focus on inconsequential personality flaws ---> Stop this kind of journalism

The only gap I can see is that maybe this process of discouraging people is actually good. Perhaps these flaws are distracting and get in the way of good governance. It's not much to go on, but we do find it in (E), which weakens the argument. If these personality traits affect job performance, we shouldn't stop reporting on them.

(A) provides support for the idea that these flaws are irrelevant. If the reports are inaccurate, that's all the more reason to stop printing them.

(B) relates to the premise of journalists as character cops. We only have so many journalists and if they are wasting their time investigating personality flaws we might be distracted from the "real" news.

(C) is similar to (A). If the "news" about candidates is really just rumors, that strengthens the connection between the character cops premise (about journalists wasting their efforts) and the conclusion.

(D) refers to the idea of discouraging capable politicians. It provides evidence of this assertion.

I hope this explanation helps a bit. I love that you are really engaging with the wrong answer choices. You will improve quite a bit if you are able to knock out answer choices quickly and confidently. Let me know if you want to discuss any of these further.

Demetri

[uhdang]

Hi,

I'm a bit confused with what the conclusion for this question is. Both the first sentence AND the last sentence sound pretty strong statement for an author to make. And supporting evidence and premise do seem to support these sentences as well.

Thank you.

[maryadkins]

I would say the last sentence is really the conclusion, since it's the point the essayist is trying to make, ultimately...obviously sentence one backs it up, but it doesn't actually get to the heart of what the essayist is REALLY pushing for — halting the trivial journalism.

Make sense?