The passage discusses the blaming of scandal on parties and the blaming’s effect on party incumbents’ reelection. A is out, because it discusses individual incumbents, not parties. B is irrelevant, because the accuracy of the blaming judgment is not of concern. "Rightly blamed" or not in C is not concerned in the passage. D, whether scandal "can practically always be blamed on incumbents" and "challengers" factor are not of concern in the passage. E is the right answer. E says when the blaming can be assigned to a party, that party should be punished (i.e. its incumbents voted out). It explains the two scenarios described in the passage: - When all parties are equally blamed, they are equally punished -- no one party is punished more than the others. So the blaming has no real effect on party incumbents’ reelection. - However, when one party is blamed, it is punished. So it's incumbents lose. P.S. my friend hedonism555 also provided another good explanation here: http://forum.chasedream.com/dispbbs.asp?boardID=66&ID=101681&page=1 |