PrepTest 106
[lcid:3520] Prep Test 106 LSAT — Logical Reasoning — S1
Logical reasoning
Question prompt
If the government increases
Remaining source text redacted.
Why the credited answer is right
Credited answer: B
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 with Necessary Premise Questions / Sufficient & Necessary Questions
Stimulus Summary
Government increases science funding → Private funders think it’s the government’s role
Private funders think it’s the government’s role → Private funders decrease funding
Conclusion - ~Decrease in overall science funding → ~Government increases science funding
Answer Anticipation
This Strengthen with Necessary Premise question is heavily based on conditional logic, so make sure that you understand our diagram. In particular, note our conclusion - we hand-waved some of the language to make it easier to match up with the language in the premises, but we should note that there’s a should in there that we didn’t write out.
With that noted, we can see that the two premises chain together to give us:
Govt increases funding → Private funders decrease funding
Since the conclusion has the sufficient condition of that premise chain as a necessary condition, we should take the contrapositive:
~Private funders decrease funding → ~Govt increases funding
And from there, we can see that there’s a term shift between the premise and conclusion. In the premise, the sufficient condition is about private funders decreasing their funding. In the conclusion, it’s about an overall decrease in scientific funding.
That discussion of the “overall” decrease is balancing the decrease in private funding against the increase in government spending, coming to the conclusion that the government funding increase will be smaller than the private funding decrease. However, it never establishes that, so let’s find an answer that does so.
Answer choices
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AGovernments should bear the Remaining source text redacted.
Why choice A is not credited
A couple problems here. First, the conclusion is conditioned on not wanting to decrease overall funding, so it doesn’t make an absolute recommendation for any funding. Second, the conclusion states that governments shouldn’t increase funding, which runs counter to this answer. -
BAny increase in government Remaining source text redacted.
Why choice B matches the stem
This answer speaks to the overall balance, showing that the increase in government funding would be smaller than the decrease in private funding. If that’s not the case - if government funding increases would be at least as large as any private funding decrease - then the government can fund research without lowering the overall funding level, invalidating the conclusion. This answer is thus a necessary premise. -
CPrivate donations toward research Remaining source text redacted.
Why choice C is not credited
What the researchers want is out of scope of the argument. Additionally, this doesn’t speak to the balance between government and private funding. -
DCivilian scientific research cannot Remaining source text redacted.
Why choice D is not credited
The argument doesn’t require multiple funding sources to create problems for research, just that public funding would displace private funding. -
EFunding for civilian scientific Remaining source text redacted.
Why choice E is not credited
Even if funding could increase for civilian scientific research, it could still decrease if the government and private sources change their funding levels, so this answer isn’t necessary.