Logical reasoning PrepTest 122 · Section 4 · Question 12

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Errors in Reasoning

Stimulus Summary:
Opposing point: Oil companies make bank, so the regulations on collusion need to be tightened.

Politician: not Regulations excessively burdensome → Oil companies have enough profits to make risky investments to get enough oil
Other industries have higher profits than oil companies
Conclusion - Regulations excessively burdensome

Answer Anticipation:
We should expect an excessively wordy argument from a politician! Here, it hides a very common pattern of reasoning on the LSAT—a conditional principle is raised, and then it's applied to a specific case. In general, when this happens, the flaw is that it fails to establish the sufficient condition is met. When that's not the case, it's usually flawed in that there is a shift between the necessary condition/conclusion that can be drawn and the actual conclusion.

Here, the Politician brings up a conditional statement about regulations being burdensome and oil company profits, and then attempts to draw a conclusion based on it. Since the conclusion is the negation of the sufficient condition (SC: not Regulations excessively burdensome; Conclusion: Regulations excessively burdensome), the Politician is relying on the contrapositive:
not Oil companies have enough profits → Regulations excessively burdensome

As we said above, these arguments are usually flawed in failing to establish the sufficient condition, and that applies here. To validly apply the conditional, it would need to be shown that the oil companies aren't making enough money to justify large and risky investments. However, what is established is that the oil company profits are lower than other industries. Well, they can still be sufficiently high to justify certain investments even if other industries are doing better. This is a shift between relative/comparative language and threshold language (making more vs. making enough), so we should look for an answer highlighting that.

Answer Explanation:
This answer points out that the argument assumes profits that aren't higher than all other industries could still be high enough to justify the risky investments, so this is the correct answer. (Note that "fails to justify its presumption" is the same as saying "the argument assumes" or "presumes without providing justification.")

Key Takeaway:
When an argument attempts to apply a conditional principle to a specific case, the most common flaw is a failure to truly establish the presence of the sufficient condition, as we saw here. When that's not the flaw, then it's likely that the argument features a term shift between the necessary condition of the principle and the conclusion drawn in the argument.

Incorrect. The Politician appears to be on the oil companies's side in suggesting they're overly regulated, so she's not attacking their character. Even the opposing point isn't attacking their character, but rather the connection between profits and regulation.

Incorrect. While the argument arguably does deal with a causal relationship (regulations driving down profits), it establishes a conditional that allows the conclusion to be drawn, so it doesn't assume that a correlation establishes that causality.

Incorrect. This answer describes an absence of evidence flaw. However, the Politician establishes that the oil industry's profits aren't as high as other industries based on recent data, so it doesn't use an absence of evidence for the opposite conclusion to prove that point. It uses evidence of that point to prove that point.

Incorrect. The conclusion is about the regulations on oil industries, not regulations overall, so there's no illicit generalization.