english • Information and Ideas • Command of Evidence
Information and Ideas• Command of EvidenceHardMultiple Choice
For each data category, the following bars are shown:
announcement before election
announcement after election
The data for the 3 categories are as follows:
no response:
announcement before election: 1,252
announcement after election: 1,248
responded to inquiry:
announcement before election: 207
announcement after election: 205
offered incentive:
announcement before election: 128
announcement after election: 122
In the United States, firms often seek incentives from municipal governments to expand to those municipalities. A team of political scientists hypothesized that municipalities are much more likely to respond to firms and offer incentives if expansions can be announced in time to benefit local elected officials than if they can’t. The team contacted officials in thousands of municipalities, inquiring about incentives for a firm looking to expand and indicating that the firm would announce its expansion on a date either just before or just after the next election.
Which choice best describes data from the graph that weaken the team’s hypothesis?