This is a strengthening question, as we are asked: Which one of the following principles, if accepted, would contribute most to Shanna’s defense of her position against that of Jorge?
This stimulus is a dialogue, and our job is to specifically strengthen Shanna’s position against Jorge’s argument. Shanna argues that just by owning a piece of art, you have the right to destroy it should you want to. If we think about it, I’m sure many of us would disagree with Shanna. But our job is to support this position; if it’s yours, you can destroy it.
Jorge responds by arguing that although ownership gives you the right to possess an unique piece of art, you don’t have the right to destroy it. This is because a unique piece of art belongs to posterity (basically, humanity as a whole including those who don’t even exist yet), and so it must be preserved regardless of what you want. Ok, so Jorge thinks the value of unique art to humanity as a whole outweighs the individual rights of the owner. We should look for a principle that empowers the owner. Let’s see what we get:
Answer Choice (A) Well according to Shanna they would still be in their rights to destroy a great piece of art if they owned it and caring for it was inconvenient! But it should be obvious this doesn’t help our position at all.
Answer Choice (B) This principle supports Jorge!
Answer Choice (C) This is arguing that we shouldn’t destroy art because of its value to humanity - that’s Jorge’s position and not Shanna’s!
Answer Choice (D) This is undermining the rights of legal owners, which is the opposite of what we want to do.
Correct Answer Choice (E) The qualification about health and safety might throw you off but this is correct. If individuals can do what they want with their property so long as it doesn’t physically harm others, then they are allowed to destroy artwork they own.
This is a weakening question, since the stem says: Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
The first thing we learn is that the fines for environmentally damaging accidents are so high that it is cheaper to prevent an accident than it is to deal with the results. The second sentence begins with the conclusion indicator therefore, and concludes that businesses will now invest in preventing accidents. This sentence has a little clause in between commas with the support indicator since, which introduces the final piece of support which is that businesses care about money. It makes intuitive sense, if accidents are going to lose you a lot of money in fines, more than preventing them will, then we would expect those that care about money to prefer prevention to fines. Our job is to weaken this prediction about what businesses are going to do. Let’s see the answers:
Correct Answer Choice (A) Bingo. The argument depends on assuming that businesses will choose to invest in prevention rather than just hoping there won’t be an accident. If they significantly underestimate how likely accidents are, well then they are likely going to assume they don’t have to worry about accidents and the fines, and therefore won’t invest in prevention.
Answer Choice (B) This strengthens the argument, since the prevention of future accidents is a long-term strategy.
Answer Choice (C) This is totally compatible with the argument, the whole point is that businesses are going to invest in prevention because it makes business sense.
Answer Choice (D) This might be appealing if you infer that considering something an ordinary business expense means you don’t mind paying it; the problem is that we’ve been told that businesses care about their profits, and paying fines is more expensive than preventing them. So even if they consider fines an ordinary expense, the argument can still conclude they will choose to pay the cost of prevention instead.
Answer Choice (E) This does nothing to change the fact that prevention is cheaper than fines, and businesses want to maximize their overall profits.
This is a weakening question, indicated in the question stem by: Which one of the following, if accepted by Clay Moltz, would require him to reconsider his conclusion. Bit of a weird question stem, but we should recognize that if introducing something forces him to reconsider his conclusion, then it is weakening his argument.
Our stimulus begins with a bunch of context about a mathematical model which tries to predict the chances of extraterrestrial life existing. To be honest, the model seems to kind of suck. It relies on some pretty large assumptions about how life could exist and whether other star systems resemble ours. It is important for us to remember that we are here to weaken Clay Moltz’ reasoning, not the model’s. It seems Moltz also thinks this model sucks, but his reasoning is itself pretty poor. He infers that because we have not detected any planets outside the solar system, there must not be any life out there. It is again important to recognize that Moltz specifically restricts his conclusion to life as we know it. If some really weird stuff exists out there, that doesn’t contradict his conclusion unless it is life similar to that of Earth. Moltz argument is a classic case of confusing an absence of evidence for evidence of an absence. We can’t infer that just because we haven’t detected any planets, that we know whether there are any out there. Let’s see how the correct answer undermines this argument:
Answer Choice (A) Remember that Moltz only concludes about life as we know it; this answer choice would not force him to reconsider this conclusion.
Answer Choice (B) This could be true and Moltz’ argument would be fine; in fact, he seems to deny that there are planets out there, and therefore this answer is what we would expect to be true if his conclusion is.
Correct Answer Choice (C) This gives an alternative explanation for our not having detected any planets that is much more appealing than Moltz’s ‘there are none to detect’ hypothesis. Of course, we wouldn’t have detected any if we can’t detect any!
Answer Choice (D) This answer might be appealing if you forgot what it is we are supposed to weaken. Our target is Moltz, not the model and its large assumptions.
Answer Choice (E) Alright, but that wouldn’t explain why we haven’t detected any planets. Moltz could accept this without it posing any challenge to his support or conclusion.
This is a strengthening question, as the stem asks us: Which one of the following, if true, supports the conclusion in the passage?
This is one of those questions where you can’t help but let out a sigh when you turn the page on your LSAT and it greets you. A long stimulus doesn’t necessarily mean a difficult question, but it usually means a time consuming one. We should always focus on sifting through the unnecessary details, and try to get a good grasp on the actual argument. This stimulus begins with a lot of context about computer software and how its standardization can make it vulnerable to viruses. Because computer software has become standardized, such that a business might have all its computers running on the same or similar software, a virus which infects one computer will have a high likelihood of being able to spread throughout the network to the other similar computers, giving a vandal the potential to destroy data on all the computers. Seems like a big problem! Luckily, our author has a solution; just make the software differ slightly between computers. By introducing minor variations that are compatible with business, the possibility of a virus destroying all data can be eliminate. This solution also wouldn’t entail any loss in computer compatibility. Our author concludes that this minor variation should be adopted. Our job is to strengthen this conclusion. Let’s see what the answer choices have in store for us:
Answer Choice (A) Interesting, but we’ve been explicitly told introducing minor variations won’t negatively impact this compatibility.
Correct Answer Choice (B) This strengthens our argument, since if true it would mean that whatever the costs associated with introducing minor variation are, they are worth avoiding the damage.
Answer Choice (C) Again, the author’s solution will not impact compatibility.
Answer Choice (D) Our conclusion is that a certain strategy will prevent a particular problem. The potential existence of other problems does nothing to strengthen the proposal.
Answer Choice (E) Interesting, but I don’t see how this would strengthen our proposed solution.
This is a flaw/descriptive weakening question, and we know this because of the question stem: Which one of the following is a flaw in the argument?
The stimulus says that the 1980s has been characterized by a time of selfishness that is dangerous for our cohesiveness. The author then introduces his conclusion that selfish individualism that threatens the cohesion of society is true of any time. He supports this by saying that throughout history all humans have been motivated by selfishness. Then, he provides more support by saying even those acts that would be seen as “unselfish” were actually motivated by selfish concern for the human species.
Hold on - isn’t “selfish concern for the human species” not selfish? If you’re concerned for humans as a species, that’s not the same thing as selfish individualism.
Answer Choice (A) is not descriptively accurate - this claim is very important to providing support to the conclusion.
Answer Choice (B) is descriptively accurate but it’s not the flaw. We don’t need statistical evidence to prove the conclusion.
Answer Choice (C) is descriptively inaccurate; the argument says that selfishness occurs throughout history.
Answer Choice (D) is descriptively accurate; however, whether or not other species are selfish is inconsequential to the argument. We’re talking specifically about humans.
Correct Answer Choice (E) points out the equivocation flaw within the argument; there are two meanings of “selfish” being used: selfish individuals and self concern for the human species.