PrepTest 111

[lcid:3542] Prep Test 111 LSAT — Logical Reasoning — S3 Logical reasoning

Question prompt

The new agriculture bill Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right

Credited answer: A

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

Strengthen Questions

Stimulus Summary

Info - The leaders of the major parties have said they oppose a bill
Prediction - The bill will likely fail to pass

Answer Anticipation

There’s not a lot of words in this stimulus, but it sure puts forward a decent amount of information!
Let’s start with the conclusion - it’s a prediction that a bill is “almost” certain to fail to pass.
Why does it believe that? Because the leaders of the major parties have said they oppose it. That’s a lot of places where the argument could go wrong.
Maybe the leaders don’t have a lot of control over their members, and thus the opposition of the leadership doesn’t mean much.
Maybe the major parties are larger than the minor ones, but the minor ones outnumber the major ones. As such, it’s possible the bill could pass despite a lack of support from the major parties.
Maybe the leaders are publicly stating that they oppose the bill, but they’re actually planning to vote for it.
The one premise here talks about subsets of bigger groups (leaders → all members; major parties → all parties), and it brings up what has been said instead of what is true. That’s a Sampling or Part to Whole flaw, and a Perception vs. Reality flaw. Since we’re trying to strengthen this prediction, let’s find an answer that addresses one of these, either by stating that the subsets do represent the larger groups, or that the leaders are being honest when they voice their opposition.

Answer choices

  1. A
    Most bills that have Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice A matches the stem
    This answer establishes that, in general, bills that don’t have the support of major party leadership don’t pass. In other words, when the stimulus bases its prediction on what these leaders say, there’s a basis for doing so - strengthening the argument. Note that this answer doesn’t address the Perception vs. Reality flaw, and it also has its own issues (assuming what has been true will continue to be true). But we’re not looking for an answer that proves the bill will fail. We’re looking for an answer that strengthens the view that the bill will probably fail. That requires less of a lift, so even though this answer has issues, it still strengthens this less-than-certain conclusion.
  2. B
    Most bills that have Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice B is not credited
    First, this answer is about all members of the major parties, not just the leadership. Even then, it reverses the logic of the stimulus, in talking about what is true of most bills that failed to pass, instead of what is true of most bills that were opposed by party leaders.
  3. C
    If the leaders of Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice C is not credited
    This answer is a negation of the logic in the stimulus. All of the major party leaders have said they don’t support the bill, so this answer about bills that do have the support of all major party leaders is out of scope.
  4. D
    Most bills that have Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice D is not credited
    This bill isn’t unanimously supported by the major party leaders (in fact, it’s supported by none of them), so this answer undermines the connection between the support and passage.
  5. E
    Most bills that have Remaining source text redacted.
    Why choice E is not credited
    This answer also negates the logic, talking about a situation where at least one major leader supports the bill, whereas we know, in this case, none of them do.

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