Logical reasoning PrepTest 119 · Section 2 · Question 21

Question prompt

Ethicist: As a function Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: A

The notes below walk through why it fits the stem and how to eliminate the rest.

Argument or Facts

Facts

Valid or Flawed

NA

Question Type

Illustration Questions / Principle Questions

Stimulus Summary

~Have overwhelming evidence evidence that fulfilling duty will be a disaster → Fulfill duty

Answer Anticipation

The stimulus starts with some context, but the question stem asks us to apply the principle of morality outlined by the ethicist, and that is clearly started in the pivot statement (“However, it is a principle of morality that…”). And, as with most principles on the LSAT, it’s stated as a conditional.
We need to diagram it out (or at least get it into a format that we can understand easily), and then look for an answer that conforms to it. We’ve done that in our summary, so let’s find an answer that concludes someone should fulfill a duty because they lack overwhelming evidence that doing so will be a disaster. And let’s remember that we’re looking for an answer that concludes a necessary condition based on the sufficient - and so any answer that concludes someone shouldn’t fulfill a duty is automatically wrong since we don’t have a sufficient condition to establish that.

Answer choices

  1. A
    A teacher thinks that Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A matches the stem
    The teacher here doesn’t have evidence that fulfilling her obligation to not raise the student’s grades will be disastrous - having a lower chance of getting an internship definitely doesn’t qualify. Therefore, she should fulfill her obligation - as the answer states. This argument conforms to the principle of morality in the stimulus, so it’s correct.
  2. B
    A person should not Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    This argument concludes that someone shouldn’t fulfill their duty, but the principle provides a sufficient condition only for establishing that someone should do so.
  3. C
    A police investigator discovers Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Similar to (B), the principle doesn’t allow a conclusion to be drawn that someone shouldn’t fulfill a duty.
  4. D
    A psychiatrist's patient tells Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    This argument has competing duties, and the situation would call for the psychiatrist to fulfill both duties (which isn’t possible) since “committing a crime” isn’t necessarily disastrous consequences (maybe the crime was something minor).
  5. E
    A journalist thinks there Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    This argument is about fulfilling a duty on a certain timeline, but there’s no timeline element to the principle in the stimulus, so this answer is incorrect.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A Credited 46%
  2. B 7%
  3. C 10%
  4. D 19%
  5. E 19%

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