PrepTest 129

Incorrect. Very tempting! A public opinion survey could highlight the feelings of the average person. However, the stimulus notes that a sick person wouldn't "rely on" the medical advice of the average person—that's not the same as not being concerned with it. While public servants might not want to rely on the average person's viewpoint, they still might want to concern themselves with it (for example, to know how their actions will be received).

Incorrect. The public servant was analogous to the sick person, who was presumably no better informed about how to treat medical problems than the average person. So this answer stating that the public servant has more knowledge than the average person doesn't align with the comparison in the stimulus.

Incorrect. This answer compares public servants as they are to public servants as they should be, which isn't the same as the stimulus. Additionally, there's no indication in the medical analogy that either the sick person or the average person should know more about treatment.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Facts

Question Type:
Argument Completion

Stimulus Summary:
Seriously ill people don't rely on the average person for treatment. Similarly, a good public servant __________.

Answer Anticipation:
That "Similarly" in there tells us that we're dealing with an analogy between the two situations discussed. The first situation has two people involved—the sick person, and the average person. In order to approach this question, we should start by identifying which of those two people the public servant is in this analogy.

Since the premise leading to the conclusion is that a good public servant has the public's interest at heart, they're analogous to the sick person—who has their own health/their own interest in mind when making a decision.

Even if you have trouble tracking that comparison, it definitely doesn't make sense to say that the public servant is akin to the average person as far as the public interest is concerned. The average person in the first scenario had no personal stake or knowledge relevant to the medical problem, and the public servant is noted as having the interest of the public at heart. By ruling out this comparison, you still could have concluded that the public servant was being compared to the sick person.

With that determined, we can now anticipate the conclusion. The sick person shouldn't rely on the average person for medical treatment, and so the public servant similarly shouldn't rely on the average person for how to best serve the public interest.

Answer Explanation:
This answer completes the comparison between the public servants and the sick person—neither of them should rely on the average person's advice when making decisions. Since this completes the comparison, it's the correct answer.

Key Takeaway:
When an Argument Completion question relies on an analogy, it's important to figure out what elements presented align with which other elements so that you can complete the argument. This skill is also useful in the RC section—there will be questions that ask you to find an analogous situation, and matching up the elements from the passage to the answer choices will be key to getting those questions correct!

Incorrect. The sick person didn't need to be more knowledgeable about treatment than the average person, so this answer doesn't relate to the analogy in the stimulus. Even though this answer makes sense!