PrepTest 134

Incorrect. If anything, this justifies a direct vote over an officer vote, as that allows the officers's votes to have more power than anyone else's.

Incorrect. The argument isn't about evaluating policy changes, but rather how those policy changes are made in the first place.

Incorrect. First, the stimulus never establishes that elected officers can do this. Second, mastery of the information relevant to making decisions is never mentioned in the stimulus, so it's not a part of the Educator's argument, so a principle talking about it can't help to justify the reasoning here.

Incorrect. This is about how the officers themselves make a decision on how they're going to vote, not on how to set up a process for making decisions organizationally to begin with.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen (Principle)

Stimulus Summary:
People can more easily influence organizational policy if it's determined by officer votes than individual votes, so the union should set policy by having elected officers vote.

Answer Anticipation:
Strengthen (Principle) questions generally feature a judgment in the conclusion, and the correct answer will establish a generalization/principle that justifies that judgment based on the details of the scenario.

However, there's another common type of answer that shows up when an argument makes a recommendation—especially when it recommends a certain option over others. When a recommendation is made, the stimulus needs to establish the criteria by which that determination will be reached. Strengthen (Principle) questions that conclude a recommendation generally fail to establish that criteria, and so the correct answer generally does.

Here, the Educator recommends a certain option for setting union policy over others—a vote by elected officers instead of a vote by each union member. Why? Because the former system allows for individual members to have more influence over policy than the direct vote.

So the criteria being used in selecting the one method over the other is that it's picking the option that allows individual members to have a larger influence over policy. Let's find an answer establishing that.

Answer Explanation:
This answer sets criteria for determining a policy creation process within an organization that aligns with the argument made by the Educator. She sided with the option that allowed for individual members to have more influence, and this answer establishes that as the right criteria for making that decision.

Key Takeaway:
Most Strengthen (Principle) questions will feature a judgment in the conclusion, and have an answer that connects the details of the scenario to that judgment. However, when the conclusion of a Strengthen (Principle) argument is a recommendation, there's another common answer—something that establishes a criteria by which different potential courses of action can be compared, thus justifying the recommendation to go with one over others.