Rossi: It is undemocratic for people to live under a government in which their interests are not represented. So children should have the right to vote, since sometimes the interests of children are different from those of their parents.
Smith: Granted, children’s interests are not always the same as their parents’; governmental deficits incurred by their parents’ generation will later affect their own generation’s standard of living. But even if children are told about the issues affecting them, which is not generally the case, their conceptions of what can or should be done are too simple, and their time horizons are radically different from those of adults, so we cannot give them the responsibility of voting.
Summary
Rossi asserts that children should get the right to vote, since it’s undemocratic for people to live under a government that doesn’t represent their interests, and children’s interests are sometimes different from the interests of their parents. Smith acknowledges that children and parents can have different interests. But he concludes that we shouldn’t give children the right to vote, because their conception about what the government can or should do is too simple, and because their timeline for being affected by the government is very different from that timeline for adults.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
For some people, it’s acceptable that that they live under a government that doesn’t represent all of their interests.
The simplicity of one’s understanding is relevant to whether one should get the right to vote.
A
A democratic government does not infringe on the rights of any of its citizens.
Unsupported. Smith doesn’t say anything about infringing on rights and whether a democratic government can engage in such infringement.
B
Children have rights that must be respected by any political authority that rules over them.
Unsupported. Smith doesn’t say anything concerning whether children’s rights should be respected. He concludes they shouldn’t get the right to vote. It’s not clear whether this means children have other rights that should be respected.
C
News programs for children would give them enough information to enable them to vote in an informed way.
Unsupported. Smith doesn’t say anything concerning how children might be made to be knowledgeable enough to vote. Maybe children just can’t understand news programs.
D
If there are any limitations on full democracy that result from denying the vote to children, such limitations must be accepted.
Strongly supported. Smith concludes that children shouldn’t be given the right to vote. This implies that Smith believes whatever consequences are associated with children’s lack of the right to vote are worth bearing.
E
If parents do not adequately represent their children’s interests in the political sphere, those interests will be adequately represented by someone else.
Unsupported. Smith doesn’t suggest that there is anyone who could adequately represent children’s interests besides parents.
Science journalist: Brown dwarfs are celestial objects with more mass than planets but less mass than stars. They are identified by their mass and whether or not lithium is present in their atmospheres. Stars at least as massive as the Sun have lithium remaining in their atmospheres because the mixing of elements in their internal nuclear furnaces is incomplete. Stars with less mass than the Sun have no lithium because the element has been fully mixed into their nuclear furnaces and consumed. A brown dwarf does not have a fully functional nuclear furnace and so its lithium cannot be consumed.
Summary
Brown dwarfs are more massive than planets but less massive than stars. They are identified by their mass and whether or not lithium is present in their atmospheres. A brown dwarf’s lithium cannot be consumed because they do not have a functional nuclear furnace.
Strongly Supported Conclusions
If a celestial object does not have lithium in its atmosphere, then it is not a brown dwarf.
A
Any celestial object without lithium in its atmosphere is a star with less mass than the Sun.
This answer is unsupported. We don’t know from the stimulus that any celestial object without lithium must be a star. We only know from the stimulus that some stars do have lithium in their atmospheres.
B
Any celestial object with lithium in its atmosphere has a nuclear furnace that has incompletely mixed the object’s elements.
This answer is unsupported. We know that this is true of stars at least as massive as the sun, but saying this is true of any celestial object is too strong.
C
No celestial object that has no lithium in its atmosphere is a brown dwarf.
This answer is strongly supported. We know that brown dwarf’s must have lithium in their atmospheres because it cannot be consumed by a nuclear furnace.
D
No celestial object with lithium in its atmosphere has less mass than the Sun.
This answer is unsupported. This is the reverse relationship from the stimulus. The stimulus tells us that if a star is at least as massive as the sun, then there is lithium in that star’s atmosphere.
E
No celestial object less massive than a brown dwarf has lithium in its atmosphere.
This answer is unsupported. We don’t know anything about celestial objects with less mass than brown dwarfs from the stimulus. The stimulus is limited to brown dwarfs and celestial objects with greater mass.