Logical reasoning PrepTest 153 · Section 3 · Question 2

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen (Principle)

Stimulus Summary:
A campaign manager says their candidate can be justified in obscuring some of the unpleasant consequences of his policies, because he wouldn't get elected if he was honest, and it's vitally important that he get a chance to implement his agenda.

Answer Anticipation:
Wow, shady logic here, LSAT, but let's go ahead and try to justify it. The key term here is "justified," which appears in the conclusion but not in any of the premises. So, to strengthen the argument, we need a rule for what can be justified. Remember, even though you may dislike the speaker here, we always take LSAT premises to be true. So, something in the form of "If (premise) is true, then actions are justified" would do the trick here.

Answer Explanation:
This doesn't fully justify the reasoning (hence why this wouldn't work as a Strengthen with Sufficient Premise answer—identifying question type is key!) but it does help to strengthen it. This gives us that it's possible for the ends to justify the means. That fits with "can be justified." If the good consequence is "implements a positive agenda," the questionable act of hiding information from voters might be justified.

Key Takeaway:
There are several questions on every LSAT that can be solved just by understanding that a conclusion cannot be valid if it contains a term/concept not found in any of the premises. Watch out for synonyms of course, but this is an insight that saves you minutes, not seconds on the LSAT. Memorize it and work to fully understand it!

Incorrect. This answer choice weakens the reasoning in the stimulus. If it's better to do the right thing and fail, then the candidate should be willing to be honest and lose the election.

Incorrect. No, this implies that if the candidate wins after hiding information from voters, his election will be illegitimate.

Incorrect. The most tempting trap answer here, but look closely at the conclusion: "can be justified." This only tells us the agenda can be accomplished, not that the actions taken in the election can be justified, so it fails to strengthen the conclusion.

Incorrect. If this is true, the candidate should be taking the opposite action and informing the voters fully. Unless the candidate wants them to make a bad decision? Uh-oh, maybe voting for him is a bad decision! Is this an LSAT dad joke?