Logical reasoning PrepTest 147 · Section 4 · Question 4

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen with Sufficient Premise

Stimulus Summary:
Total government spending increases next year → Economy stimulated AND Unemployment decreases
Total government spending decreases next year → Businesses retain earning and hire AND Unemployment decreases
Therefore: Unemployment will soon decrease

Answer Anticipation:
It's unclear at first that the opening statement is the main point of the argument, but—despite no structure keywords—it must be, as the other two statements are both conditionals that lead to unemployment decreasing.

With that established, we can see that this answer fits into a less-common pattern on the LSAT—two conditionals that have negated sufficient conditions of each other. These pairs of conditionals purport to cover all possible situations and thus provide information about all possible outcomes. Frequently, those outcomes lead to the same place, as they do here—both conditional results in unemployment decreasing, which is how the conclusion is drawn.

When you see this structure, your first thought should be on whether the two sufficient conditions actually cover all possibilities. Here, they don't. They cover if government spending goes up or down significantly, but it's silent on what happens when total government spending doesn't go up or down significantly. So there are two answers that would allow the conclusion to be properly inferred—either government spending won't stay about the same next year, or government spending staying the same will also guarantee a decrease in unemployment.

Answer Explanation:
This answer guarantees that government spending won't stay about the same next year—it'll either go up or down by a significant amount. If that's the case, then one of the two conditionals in the stimulus apply, and unemployment is guaranteed to decrease.

Key Takeaway:
When the stimulus raises two conditionals that have negated or opposite sufficient conditions, check to see if there's a middle ground between them. The argument likely reaches its conclusion assuming there isn't, so if there is, that's the flaw that you'll need to address.

Incorrect. As we've seen time and again on the LSAT, intent doesn't guarantee outcome, so the implementation of policy designed to reduce unemployment isn't guaranteed to be successful, and there's nothing in the premises that changes that.

Incorrect. There's no indication that there will be a significantly increased demand for workers, and that's not an outcome of either of the conditional statements, so this answer is out of scope.

Incorrect. The long run doesn't matter since the conclusion is just about the near future ("soon").

Incorrect. Since the conclusion is that unemployment will decrease, an answer that provides a rule guaranteeing the opposite can be eliminated.