Logical reasoning PrepTest 102 · Section 3 · Question 18

Flawed

Strengthen with Sufficient Premise Questions

Standard treatments for X - Effective, but painful and expensive Nonstandard treatments for X - Not painful, but not effective Past decade - A decreasing percentage of X treatment money is going to standard treatments, and an increasing percentage on nonstandard treatments Therefore - Less money is spent on effective treatments than a decade ago

Strengthen with Sufficient Premise questions generally introduce a new concept in the conclusion that needs to be connected to a term in the premises to justify the argument. However, that’s just a general trend, and we should also be on the lookout for any other flaw that can be present. We’re going to loop back around to this at the end, but remember it as we shift gears! Reading through any argument on the LSAT should be done with an eye towards elements that may be related to a flaw. Here, as soon as you saw “percentage” in that first sentence, you should have thought of a Percent vs. Amount flaw. Fast-forward to the conclusion, and we can see that it’s about an amount of money being spent (“less money”), so the argument does jump between percent and amount. A decreasing percent of money is spent on standard/effective treatments, and thus a decreasing amount of money must be spent on standard/effective treatments. That’s a flawed leap that we need to address to justify the conclusion. But how do we “fix” a Percent vs. Amount flaw? Well, anything that allows us to determine that a decline in the percent does mean a decline in the amount will do. The most straightforward method is to show that the same overall amount is still being spent on treating disease X, so a smaller percent does equal a smaller amount. Ditto if the total spending went down. The more difficult method involves balancing out any increase in overall spending with the decline in the percentage - but that’s too math-y, so let’s not worry about that until we get into the answers. Instead, let’s look for any answer that discusses overall spending and dig into it as needed. Now, circling back. There is a new term in the conclusion here - “less.” Concepts aren’t always nouns - sometimes they’re more abstract than that. That said, it’s probably easier to approach this question by spotting the Percent vs. Amount flaw, as all that required was noting that the premises discussed percents in order to start down that path!