PrepTest 137

Correct. Argument or Facts:
Argument

Valid or Flawed:
Flawed

Question Type:
Strengthen with Necessary Premise

Stimulus Summary:
Government policies increased gas demand, which drove gas prices up, so the government's responsible for gas prices going up.

Answer Anticipation:
The premises of this stimulus create a causal chain that starts with the government's policies and end with gas prices going up. From this, the argument concludes that the government is "responsible" for those gas prices going up.

Responsibility is a tricky concept on the LSAT. The reason for this is that it's hard to know what, exactly, makes someone responsible. Can you be responsible for something you didn't intend? For an unexpected consequence of an action? And how far away from the initial action can you go before responsibility stops?

Since these questions aren't answered by the stimulus, the argument is assuming that the actions noted created responsibility, and the correct answer should connect those ideas.

Answer Explanation:
This answer connects the government's actions to responsibility. If the government can't be responsible for something it indirectly causes, then the conclusion in the argument doesn't hold, as they were an indirect cause of the gas price increasing (they caused demand, not price, to go up).

Key Takeaway:
On the LSAT, the idea of responsibility is a tricky one that really requires a premise—usually a principle—establishing rules for. Short of that, there's a good chance any argument concluding responsibility is flawed in failing to define the term.

Incorrect. There's no information provided on whether the government foresaw that their actions would ultimately result in an increase in gas prices, so it's impossible to know if the gas price increase was an unforeseen consequence.

Incorrect. In this case, consumer demand did increase gas prices. It doesn't matter if that's always the case for it to have happened here, and it certainly doesn't speak to responsibility.

Incorrect. Having an obligation is related to responsibility, so this answer is related to the gap in the argument. However, there's no indication that the demand for gas went up "excessively" in this case—it went up enough to drive prices up, but that's not the same as being excessive (in fact, it's hard to know what's excessive without a definition of that word).

Incorrect. An argument about a specific case generally won't need to assume what would happen in a separate and fundamentally different case.