LSAT 134 – Section 3 – Question 09

LSAT 134 - Section 3 - Question 09

October 2011

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT134 S3 Q09
+LR
Strengthen +Streng
Link Assumption +LinkA
A
91%
165
B
1%
154
C
1%
154
D
7%
155
E
1%
154
137
145
152
 +Medium 146.872 +SubsectionMedium

In some jurisdictions, lawmakers have instituted sentencing guidelines that mandate a penalty for theft that is identical to the one they have mandated for bribery. Hence, lawmakers in those jurisdictions evidently consider the harm resulting from theft to be equal to the harm resulting from bribery.

Summarize Argument
The author concludes that certain lawmakers think that theft and bribery are equally harmful. She supports this by saying that they mandate identical penalties for both.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that the lawmakers set penalties based on how harmful they believe a crime is. In other words, she assumes that a crime’s penalty accurately reflects the harm that the lawmakers think it causes.

A
In general, lawmakers mandate penalties for crimes that are proportional to the harm they believe to result from those crimes.
If lawmakers generally mandate penalties that correspond to the harm that they think results from a crime, then it’s likely the lawmakers in these jurisdictions consider theft and bribery equally harmful, since the penalties for both are the same.
B
In most cases, lawmakers assess the level of harm resulting from an act in determining whether to make that act illegal.
The argument addresses how lawmakers set penalties for crimes, not how they decide if an act is illegal. Instead of (B), we need to know whether lawmakers assess the level of harm resulting from an act in determining the penalty for that act.
C
Often, in response to the unusually great harm resulting from a particular instance of a crime, lawmakers will mandate an increased penalty for that crime.
This suggests that a very harmful case of theft or bribery would lead lawmakers to increase the penalty. But the author is focusing on the harm of theft and bribery overall, not just extreme cases.
D
In most cases, a victim of theft is harmed no more than a victim of bribery is harmed.
The author only discusses how much harm lawmakers think bribery and theft cause; it doesn’t matter how much they actually cause. Even if they cause equal harm, this doesn’t help to determine whether lawmakers mandate penalties based on how much harm they think a crime causes.
E
If lawmakers mandate penalties for crimes that are proportional to the harm resulting from those crimes, crime in those lawmakers’ jurisdictions will be effectively deterred.
The author doesn’t mention anything about crime being effectively deterred. Instead, we need to know whether lawmakers actually “mandate penalties for crimes that are proportional to the harm resulting from those crimes” in the first place.

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LSAT PrepTest 134 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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