🔍 Question Type

Inference / Interpretation of Response
We are asked to determine what Ms. Siuzdak’s reply shows she understood Mr. Janeck’s remark to imply.

🧩 Breakdown of Stimulus

• Mr. Janeck’s Claim: Stevenson is unlikely to win because voters hesitate to elect a businessman without political experience.
• Ms. Siuzdak’s Reply: Running a corporation equips a person with skills relevant to governing a state.

Notice: Mr. Janeck makes a prediction about voter behavior. Ms. Siuzdak responds as if he made a judgment on Stevenson’s suitability. The gap between prediction and evaluation is the crux of the question.

🧠 Reasoning Approach

1. Identify the focus of each speaker:
   • Janeck → Voter tendencies (external).
   • Siuzdak → Candidate qualifications (internal).
2. Recognize the misinterpretation: Siuzdak takes Janeck’s remark as though he doubts Stevenson’s qualifications.
3. Evaluate answer choices to see which captures this misinterpretation.

📊 Answer Choice Analysis

• (A) Mr. Janeck considers Stevenson unqualified for the office of governor.
  ✅ Correct. This matches Siuzdak’s response: she argues business experience makes Stevenson qualified, which only makes sense if she interpreted Janeck’s remark as saying Stevenson is unqualified.
• (B) No candidate without political experience has ever been elected governor of a state.
  ❌ Too extreme. Janeck said few voters are willing, not that no one has ever been elected. Siuzdak’s reply does not assume such an absolute historical claim.
• (C) Mr. Janeck believes that political leadership and business leadership are closely analogous.
  ❌ Opposite direction. Siuzdak argues that business prepares one for politics. Janeck never made any claim about analogies between leadership domains.
• (D) A career spent in the pursuit of profit can be an impediment to one’s ability to run a state government fairly.
  ❌ Out of scope. Neither speaker mentions morality, fairness, or profit motives. The issue is purely experience versus qualification.
• (E) Voters generally overestimate the value of political experience when selecting a candidate.
  ❌ Misaligned. Janeck says voters hesitate to elect a candidate without political experience. That does not imply voters overestimate it — he simply reports their likely behavior. Siuzdak’s reply also does not address this.

✅ Correct Answer

(A) Mr. Janeck considers Stevenson unqualified for the office of governor.

✨ Key Insights

• Misinterpretation questions often involve one person’s prediction being taken as a value judgment by the other.
• Eliminating wrong answers requires checking for:
  • Exaggeration (B)
  • Scope shifts (D, E)
  • Irrelevant analogies (C)
• The best answer is the one that aligns with how the second speaker framed their response.

📝 Replicable Template

1. Question Type – Clarify what kind of CR question it is.
2. Breakdown of Stimulus – Summarize key claims by each party.
3. Reasoning Approach – Outline logical steps to reach the answer.
4. Option-by-Option Analysis – Justify correct choice and systematically rule out others.
5. Final Answer – Clearly state the correct option.
6. Key Insights – Highlight transferable reasoning strategies.