Logical reasoning PrepTest 154 · Section 1 · Question 2

Incorrect. First, the conclusion is about true democracies, not just democracies. Second, the argument concludes not just that most political systems haven't been true democracies, but that at least all but one have not been true democracies. This answer doesn't guarantee the conclusion—it's too weak and features a term shift.

Incorrect. The stimulus establishes that the legislature being made up of all eligible voters was unique, not that public debate was unique to Athens. Since this answer raises something that many democracies may share/have shared with ancient Athens, it doesn't set out Athens as uniquely suited to qualify as a true democracy, nor does it rule out any other political system as a true democracy.

Incorrect. Since the conclusion of the argument is about all political systems, not just those of ancient Greece, this answer isn't nearly strong enough.

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen with Sufficient Premise

Stimulus Summary:
Ancient Athens is the only political system in world history where direct votes by all voters made all political decisions. So if there's ever been a true democracy, ancient Athens was it.

Answer Anticipation:
This is a relatively tricky argument for question #2 in a section! Note that the conclusion isn't that ancient Athens was a true democracy—it's that no other political system was a true democracy, and Athens may or may not have been. As such, we need an answer that connects the premises to that actual conclusion instead of the one that the LSAT is clearly trying to get you to think is being drawn.

Why does the stimulus believe that no other system was a true democracy? Because they didn't allow voters to directly vote on all political issues. However, the argument never defines a true democracy as requiring that, so the correct answer will connect these ideas:

True democracy → Voters directly vote on all political issues
not Voters directly vote on all political issues → not True democracy

Answer Explanation:
This answer connects the ideas the argument failed to connect and matches our anticipation, so it's correct:

not Voters directly vote on all political issues → not True democracy

Key Takeaway:
Strengthen with Sufficient Assumption questions will generally have a conditional answer that connects an idea from the premise to a new concept in the conclusion. Also, be careful with conditional conclusions! Here, it would be easy to think that the conclusion was about ancient Athens, but it actually didn't commit to saying anything about that city—it may or may not have been a true democracy. It did, however, commit to stating that all other political systems were not true democracies.

Incorrect. Attending the Assembly is out of scope, since there's no information that this was a requirement to vote on any given issue.