Logical reasoning PrepTest 152 · Section 1 · Question 20

The argument is about accuracy and whether the reports should be issued, not whether there's a need for them. Additionally, the argument never states whether these health reports are necessary. Sure, they haven't existed, but that could have been a major problem for the government in that it was missing necessary information.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Principle (Strengthen)

Stimulus Summary:
Political pressure leads to inaccuracies in government reports, so these ministries shouldn't issue scientific reports.

Answer Anticipation:
Principle (Strengthen) questions will frequently break down to connecting the simplified premise to the conclusion. Here, we learn that these scientific assessments are politically biased. The author concludes, then, that they shouldn't be issued.

The correct answer will most likely connect those: If a government ministry would release an inaccurate scientific report because of political pressure, then it shouldn't issue that report.

Answer Explanation:
Rephrasing this to simplify the complex conditional language ("unless"), this breaks down to: If a ministry doesn't have a strong reason to believe it can release an accurate report, it shouldn't issue the report. This matches our prephrase and the argument. The correct answer to this question type can often feel as if you're mostly restating the argument!

Key Takeaway:
Strengthen (Principle) questions frequently have correct answers that sound very repetitive of the argument itself.

The argument itself doesn't judge whether the political pressure is a bad thing; just that it exists and should preclude the release of reports.

This is a tempting answer, but it's the inverse of what the argument assumes. This answer would justify a conclusion about what the government should do, not what it shouldn't do, as we see in this argument.

This argument is about whether the ministry should issue a report, not whether it should resist the pressure. While you may think the author takes a negative opinion of that pressure, and that the ministries should thus fight back, it's not what the argument itself is about.