CAT Critical Reasoning Practice question with Solution 18

The author believes that it is more important to criticize democracies that have violated human rights than it is to criticize dictatorships that have committed more violent offenses. Why? Among other claims, the author indicates that the violations committed by democracies are worse (“more reprehensible”) than those committed by dictators, since the actions of a democracy reflect the will of the people. So the violations committed by democracies can be more reprehensible even if they are less violent. Then, as choice (B) has it, it must be possible that some human rights violations can be worse than other human rights violations that are more violent.

(A) is not a valid inference.

(C) Even though the author claims that criticism would have more of an effect on a democracy, that’s no basis for claiming that criticism would have no effect on a dictatorship.

(D) is out of the scope. The argument never addresses the relative frequency of human rights violations.

(E) is an irrelevant distinction. The stimulus never mentions those that merely claim to represent the will of the people.