Logical reasoning PrepTest 123 · Section 3 · Question 23

Question prompt

Political candidates' speeches are Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: D

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

Argument or Facts

Argument

Valid or Flawed

Flawed

Question Type

Errors in Reasoning Questions

Stimulus Summary

Politicians make promises in speeches, but the speeches are meant to get them elected. Therefore, the speeches are motivated by selfishness and the promises are lies.

Answer Anticipation

Noticing motives—and, frequently, them being different than outcomes—is generally important on an LSAT question. Here, however, both the premise and the conclusion are about motivations, so there's less of a gap than we'd usually see.
The conclusion here has two parts—first, the speeches are selfishly motivated, and second, the promises made in them are unreliable.
For the first part, there is a small gap between being motivated by a desire to be elected, and selfishness. Maybe the politician would prefer to retire or live a private life, but they think they can do good by being elected. So there is a flaw here in equating a desire to be elected with selfishness.
As to the second part of the conclusion, there's a much bigger gap. The candidates make promises in the speeches, and their motives are a bit suspect, but that's not evidence that their promises won't be fulfilled. Even if you make a promise for selfish reasons, it could still be a reliable promise—maybe you'd keep it for selfish reasons, as well. There's a gap between the motivation and the distrust here, and that could also be brought up in the correct answer.

Answer choices

  1. A
    The argument presumes, without Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A is not credited
    Incorrect. This answer choice is the negation of what we're looking for! The argument assumes that if a promise is made for selfish reasons, it's not reliable. This answer choice states that if it's not made for selfish reasons, it is reliable. Since it's a negation of what the argument does, it's not something the argument presumes.
  2. B
    The argument presumes, without Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    Incorrect. The argument concludes that the promises are unreliable. That's a far cry from never being kept, so this answer choice doesn't properly reflect the stimulus and can thus be ruled out.
  3. C
    The argument confuses the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    Incorrect. Both the premise and conclusion are about the motivations behind actions—in other words, what caused someone to take that action. It's therefore not confusing cause and effect.
  4. D
    The argument overlooks the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D matches the stem
    Correct. Someone making a reliable promise for selfish reasons is a possibility that the argument doesn't consider, since it relies on the selfish motivation to justify its conclusion about unreliability. Since this answer highlights a possibility relevant to the conclusion but not considered by the author, it's correct.
  5. E
    The argument overlooks the Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    Incorrect. The conclusion is about motivations and reliability, not worthiness for office. This answer choice is outside the scope of the argument.

What this tests

Question analytics

Based on historical answer selection rates for this question.

Answer choice distribution

  1. A 15%
  2. B 24%
  3. C 7%
  4. D Credited 48%
  5. E 7%

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