Statement: Should all the unauthorized structures in the city be demolished?…
2024
Statement: Should all the unauthorized structures in the city be demolished?
Arguments:
(I)No. Where will the people residing in such houses live?
(II)Yes. This will give a clear message to general public and they will refrain from constructing unauthorized buildings.
Answer: B. Only argument II is strong — Concept: In Statement-and-Argument reasoning, an argument is judged "strong" only when it is directly relevant to the statement, engages the actual issue on…
- A.
Only argument I is strong
- B.
Only argument II is strong
- C.
Either I or II is strong
- D.
Neither I nor II is strong
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: B
Concept: In Statement-and-Argument reasoning, an argument is judged "strong" only when it is directly relevant to the statement, engages the actual issue on its own merit, and is a sound, non-trivial line of reasoning. An argument is "weak" when it is a superficial, emotional, or off-point objection that does not squarely address whether the proposed action is right or wrong.
Application: Argument I raises a resettlement concern ("where will they live") but never disputes that the construction is unauthorized in the first place — it describes an inconvenience for occupants, not a reason the demolition of illegal structures is the wrong policy, so it fails the relevance test. Argument II directly engages the policy question: demolishing unauthorized structures sets a clear deterrent, discourages future illegal construction, and protects the city's infrastructure from further unauthorized burden. That is a sound, directly relevant justification for the action in the statement, so it qualifies as strong.
Cross-check — why the other options don't fit:
"Only argument I is strong" — wrong, because a housing-displacement concern alone doesn't dispute the illegality of the construction; it's a logistical objection, not a reason the demolition itself is unsound.
"Either argument I or II is strong" — wrong, because "either" fits only when two arguments are structurally mirror versions of the same reasoning (so exactly one must hold, but content alone can't say which). Here the two arguments raise entirely independent points — resettlement versus deterrence — so they aren't a mirror pair, and each must be judged on its own.
"Neither argument I nor II is strong" — wrong, because this requires both arguments to fail the relevance-and-soundness test; one of them clearly meets it.
Result: Exactly one of the two arguments — the deterrence argument — meets the criteria for a strong argument, so only argument II is strong.