This is a Parallel Flaw Method of Reasoning question.

The stimulus says that every Labrador retriever in my neighborhood is a well-behaved dog. Here we can kick the idea of dogs and my neighborhood up into the domain and say lab → well behaved. However, no pet would be well behaved if it were not trained. Dogs are a subset of pets, so you can kick the idea of pets into the superset and say /trained → /well behaved. The contrapositive is well behaved → trained. This allows us to hook up our conditions to get the following:

lab → well behaved → trained

We can connect the second claim about pets to a claim about dogs because if a rule pertains to all pets, then it must also pertain to all dogs since dogs are a subset of pets.

And here comes the conclusion. Thus it is training, not genetic makeup of the breed, that accounts for these Labrador retrievers’ good behavior. This is a causal claim with a positive and a negative component. The positive component is that training accounts for good behavior, and the negative component is that it is not the genetic makeup of the breed that accounts for good behavior. Note that “genetic makeup” refers to the fact that the dogs in question are genetically of the Labrador breed. So I would write:

lab → well behaved → trained
________________________________________________
training —cause→ well behaved
not (lab* —cause→ well behaved)

The asterisk is to indicate that it is not exactly the fact that the dog is a Labrador, but a variant of this idea (genetic makeup of the dog) that does not cause good behavior.

This is a strange argument. The premise establishes that training is a requirement for being well behaved so it does seem like there's some causal power flowing from training to behavior. But how can we be sure that genetics has nothing to do with it? There's no support for that claim at all.

While it's good practice to think about why the argument is weak, this is a Parallel Flaw question so you don't really have to in order to get the question right. You can just do a formal mapping, like this:

▢ → ◯ → △
________________________________________________
△ —cause→ ◯
not (* —cause→ ◯)

Correct Answer Choice (B) gives us this. Whenever it snows there are relatively more car crashes on the highways. Kick highways up into the domain. Within this domain, snow → more crashes.

Then (B) says yet in general, there would not be car crashes unless people were careless. Here, “in general” is the superset of the highways, and “unless” is group 3 negate sufficient, which means carelessness is a necessary condition for crashes (crashes → carelessness). All crashes, of course, includes the “more crashes” on snowy days, so:

snow → more crashes → carelessness

And (B) gives us the correct causal conclusion with the positive and the negative components. (B) says it is not icy roads, but carelessness, that causes car crashes when it snows. Notice how the icy roads are not exactly snow, but a version of it, similar to what we had for Labradors and genetic makeup.

carelessness —cause→ crashes
not (snow* —cause→ crashes)

Answer Choice (A) says all the students at Bryker School excel in their studies. Kick students up into the domain. The stimulus was talking about a subset of dogs, the Labrador retrievers. Here, we are talking about a subset of students, the ones at Bryker. So within this domain of students, Bryker → excel. However, students at Bryker School would not excel if they did not have good teachers (/good teachers → /excel). Notice this claim is not a more general claim and therefore already a bit off. But let's keep going and take the contrapositive, excel → good teachers, and chain it up:

Bryker → excel → good teachers

(A) lacks the domain shift we had with the pets, but I suppose this does not preclude it entirely. (A) is so far just a bit worse than (B), but what happens next really kills (A). (A) should have said:

good teachers —cause→ excel
not (*Bryker —cause→ excel)

In other words, it is the good teachers that produce (or some other causal verb) excellence, not the Bryker school or some asterisk version of it. But (A) instead says all schools should hire good teachers if they want their students to excel. This is a prescription. It's a policy recommendation. It's not a causal explanation. (A) maybe presumes a causal relationship, but then on the basis of that, makes a recommendation. In addition, notice that the conclusion in the stimulus is limited to the Labrador retrievers in the neighborhood. It doesn't attempt to draw a more generalized conclusion from the premises. Yet (A) does. (A) tries to draw a more generalized conclusion about all schools based on premises about the Bryker School.

Answer Choice (C) says every musician I know is a good dancer (musician → good dancer) and every mathematician I know is a bad dancer (mathematician → bad dancer). This already does not look good, but let’s keep going. There's an implicit premise that good dancers are not bad dancers. So, if musicians are good dancers, then they are not bad dancers, then they are not mathematicians.

musician → good dancer (→ /bad dancer) → /mathematician

Okay, so this at least kind of resembles our stimulus. What we need for (C) to work is to find this in the conclusion:

/mathematician —cause→ good dancer
not (*musician —cause→ good dancer)

In other words, not being a mathematician causes one to be a good dancer and being a musician* (like having a good sense of rhythm) doesn't. However, (C) gives us the opposite. It says it is a sense of rhythm, not the ability to count (mathematician*), that is responsible for good dancing.

Answer Choice (D) says all of the good cooks in my country use butter, not margarine, in their cooking. Let's kick “my country” into the domain. And within my country, good cook → butter and good cook → /margarine. Already, this is not going to work. You are not going to be able to hook up these two conditions by taking the contrapositive. (D) then concludes that if you want to be a good cook, you must use butter, not margarine.

We already know that (D) isn't right. But is (D) a good argument? Nope. It's terrible. Do good cooks in other countries also use butter and not margarine? And is using butter and not margarine what makes cooks good? The conclusion is a causal claim while the premise is merely an observational claim. I am sure that not too long ago, you could have made an observational claim that all of the best chefs in the world are men, and therefore, what... if you want to be a top chef, you must be a man?

Answer Choice (E) says all of the students in my algebra class received an A, even though none of them can solve word problems. The domain here is the algebra class, and within this domain we have student → A and student → /solve word problems. Like (D), we cannot hook up these two conditions by taking a contrapositive. But (E) has an additional premise. It says that no student who is unable to solve word problems has an adequate understanding of algebra (/word problems → /understanding). This is actually not bad because (E) now makes a general claim that applies beyond the algebra class and this claim chains up:

student → A
student → /word problems → /understanding

The second conditional chain resembles our stimulus, so we can ignore student → A. Now, what I need for (E) to work is the following causal conclusions:

/understanding —cause→ /word problems
not (*student —cause→ /word problems)

In English, it is the lack of understanding of algebra that's responsible (cause) for the inability to solve word problems, not the fact that one is a student*. The conclusion in (E), however, is that the students in my class received A's not because they did any good work. Where did “good work” even come from? And also, remember we are ignoring student → A since the parallel of this is not present in the stimulus.

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This is a PSA question.

The stimulus says the builders of the Glen Veil apartment complex will not complete the complex unless a road connecting it to the town of Sierra is built. “Unless” is group 3 which means negate sufficient, so for the builders to complete the apartment complex, it is necessary that the connecting road be built (complete complex → road built). This is the first claim, and it is a conditional claim.

The next claim is a causation claim, not a conditional claim. It says the completed apartment complex would strengthen Sierra’s economy, and a stronger economy would benefit every Sierra resident. So I would write:

complete complex —cause→ strong economy —cause→ every resident benefits

And the prescriptive conclusion is that the residents of Sierra should vote to fund the construction of the proposed road.

Before we get into the answer choices, can you state in very general terms the descriptive-premise (P) → prescriptive-conclusion (C) we are looking for? It is something like if a construction project is necessary to another construction project whose consequence is a strengthened economy or some benefit to everyone, then residents should vote in favor of the first construction project. Obviously, it does not have to be this exact wording, but you are looking for some variant of this P → C. But watch out for C → P.

Which is the recurring trap that shows up in Answer Choice (B). It says the residents of a town should not vote in favor of a local tax to fund the construction project unless that construction project will produce results that benefit all of those residents. “Unless” is negate sufficient. If residents should vote to fund the construction project, then every resident benefits. You can bet money all day long that they will give you the right content but in the wrong logical order in PSA questions.

(B) should say if the construction project will produce results that benefit all residents, then the residents of the town should vote for it. The construction of the road is necessary for the construction of the apartment which benefits every resident, so you can say that the construction of the road will also produce results, albeit indirectly. This is not logically airtight, but you will see later on in (E) why this could work in the context of a PSA question.

Answer Choice (A) is also wrong, but for a different reason. (A) says if a construction project is necessary in order to strengthen a town’s economy, then the residents of the town should vote in favor of a local tax to fund that construction project.

While (A) is capable of delivering the desired conclusion, the premise does not trigger (A)'s sufficient conditions. We were never told of any necessary conditions to strengthen a town's economy. Building the road is necessary for the apartment complex which in turn would strengthen the economy, but that doesn't mean building the road is necessary for strengthening the economy. There may well be plenty of other ways to strengthen the economy without having to build that road.

One way you could fix (A) is by fixing the stimulus. The stimulus could say that in order for our economy to be strengthened, it is required that the apartment complex be completed. You could also fix (A) itself. If a construction project is necessary for another construction project whose consequence is that of a strengthened economy, then the residents should vote to fund it. This would trigger our stimulus.

See if you can come up with an analogy. Here's one. For me, wearing running shoes is necessary in order to go for a long run. Going for a long run results in me feeling better. (A) wants to claim that wearing running shoes is necessary for me to feel better.

Correct Answer Choice (E) says anyone who would benefit from the results of a construction project should vote in favor of a local tax to fund that project. First of all, (E) has the premise and the conclusion in the right location. If you would benefit, then you should vote in favor. This is the P → C.

You might object to (E) by pointing out that the construction project referred to in (E) could be the construction of the apartment complex. Yes, but there is nothing in (E) that forces only this interpretation. We could have just correctly identified the construction project as the building of the road.

You might also point out that building a road is only a necessary condition for the apartment complex, and the benefits to every resident are consequences of the apartment complex, not the road. You might say that we do not know the benefits of the road since it is just a necessary condition.

But this is not a Sufficient Assumption question. This is a PSA question. In context, the result of building the road cannot be nothing. The stimulus said the apartment complex will not be completed unless the road is built, so it seems reasonable to say that the result of the road being built is that the apartment gets completed, which has its attendant benefits, some of which can be attributed to the road.

I admit this is not logically airtight, but we are in PSA territory and we're dealing with causal logic. It is much more reasonable to make this argument as opposed to one required for (A), where we would have to say that just because the apartment complex would result in a strengthened economy, there is no other way to strengthen the economy. Meanwhile, (E) is only asking us to say that the consequences of the apartment complex can accrue to the road as well, given the relationship between the two projects.

Answer Choice (C) says whenever a town funds a construction project, it should do so by means of a tax rather than a debt. Nobody is contemplating a debt. If I was trying to argue that a town should fund its projects with tax and not with other sources, then maybe (C) would contribute. But as it stands, (C) is totally useless.

Answer Choice (D) says only those residents who will benefit from the results of a construction project should be required to pay a tax. The rule here sets us up for contraposing in order to yield the result that certain residents shouldn't be required to pay a tax. That's not what we want. We are only trying to argue that residents should vote in favor of a tax. The details of the tax and who specifically is paying for it are not what the argument is concerned about.

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Further Explanation

This is a Weakening question.

This is a very difficult question, to put it mildly. Look at the crazy analytics. But hopefully with a clear-eyed review, we can strip away the difficulties and see that at its core, this is a representative Weakening question where the correct answer choice challenges an assumption. In other words, it gets in the space between the premise and the conclusion.

The historian begins by talking about medieval epistemology. This question is already trying to scare you. Look at how many times this word or its cognate appears in the stimulus. You know the LSAT writers were smirking when they wrote this. But it turns out that it does not even matter what epistemology is. This word could have been anything: theology, biology, etc. The stimulus is just talking about how we determine whether something belongs in a particular set; it just so happens that the set has a scary name, "epistemology."

The historian says because medieval epistemology is a complex subject, intellectual historians have, until recently, failed to produce a definition that would help to determine what should and what should not be included in it. The historian then concludes that, clearly, the solution is to define medieval epistemology simply as “the epistemological beliefs of the medieval epistemologists.”

And why should we believe this? Here comes her premise. That way, if we want to know whether medieval epistemology includes some epistemological claim, we just ask whether any medieval epistemologists believed it. If any did, then it is a part of medieval epistemology; if any medieval epistemologist believed the opposite, then that opposite claim is part of medieval epistemology.

Say you are a medieval epistemologist. I am sure you have a bunch of beliefs about what you ate for lunch, whether your dog is a good dog, etc. But we only care about your beliefs about epistemology, of which you have four. So all four beliefs go into the set of epistemology. Let's examine another medieval epistemologist. This epistemologist has three beliefs about epistemology. So these three beliefs also go in the set. And we just keep doing this.

The historian then says that if one epistemologist had an epistemological belief, X, and if some other epistemologist believed not X, then both X and not X would be in the set. That's the end of the argument.

Immediately, we want to challenge this argument because we recognize that if we do what the historian says, the set could be internally inconsistent. That is, there could be two members (beliefs) that contradict each other in the set. And lo and behold, Answer Choice (D) is right there waiting for us. It says some medieval epistemologists had epistemological beliefs that contradicted the beliefs of other medieval epistemologists. This is exactly our concern above. (D) makes the hypothetical contradiction in the argument actual. So we've weakened the argument!

But have we really though? Nowhere in the argument was it stated that internal consistency was a goal, not by the other intellectual historians nor by our historian who offered the solution. You might be tempted to say that it is a common sense assumption that belief systems must be internally consistent, but no. Because that depends on the purpose of the belief system. If you are building rockets to go to Mars, then your belief system had better be internally consistent or you're going to explode. But these are just historians trying to figure out what counts as medieval epistemology.

Say I wanted to define medieval biology and our historian says to define it simply as the biological beliefs of medieval biologists. So what if some biologists believed frogs were reptiles and some believed frogs were not? This is a contradiction, but what would be the problem here? We are just trying to catalog what people believed. I would expect that in the aggregate of medieval biologists' beliefs, there were at least some internally inconsistent beliefs. Someone had a particular belief and other people disagreed with it, but both are a part of medieval biology. Progress will simply reveal who's right and who's wrong. This is true even today, with modern biologists.

So why would things be different for epistemology? For example, maybe some people thought knowledge is true belief while others thought knowledge is justified true belief. This is fine. Our historian is just trying to figure out what counts as medieval epistemology, and nothing in the conclusion says medieval epistemology has to be internally consistent. So what if internal inconsistency is a feature of medieval epistemology? As uncomfortable as that idea may feel, it is in fact what the historian explicitly says in the last sentence of the argument. Our discomfort arises from an unwillingness to accept that premise because we realize that the consequences of accepting that premise are that we might end up with an inconsistent set. But one more realization will dispel that discomfort: that a consistent set was never a requirement.

Correct Answer Choice (E) says there is much debate as to which medieval thinkers, if any, were epistemologists. This is a much better answer because this answer mined out an assumption the argument made. For our historian’s definition to work, it is presumed that we know who these epistemologists are. Otherwise, how would we know who to even examine out of all the medieval thinkers whose thoughts have survived?

And (E) calls out this assumption by saying it is not clear which thinkers were epistemologists. Now our historian’s solution is not a solution at all because it has just kicked the can down the road. Our original problem was that it was unclear which beliefs should or should not be included in the set of medieval epistemology. If (E) is true, then we still have the same problem because now it is unclear which thinkers should or should not be included in the set of medieval epistemologists.

By the way, it is no accident that (E) came after (D) had trapped a lot of people. But hopefully you see now that (D) latches onto a concern we had that was irrelevant to the evaluation of the argument, whereas (E) latches onto a concern we probably did not think of but, in fact, is highly relevant to the evaluation of the argument.

Answer Choice (A) says medieval epistemologists held some of the same epistemological beliefs as did ancient epistemologists. Great. So they believed the same things as the ancients like Plato. All (A) says is that some thoughts were not original. Maybe this overlap was coincidental, or maybe the plagiarizing medieval epistemologists took things straight from Plato and did not even give him credit.

(A) would have been a bit more relevant if our concern was about original thought or tracing the roots of these thoughts. And note that the historian’s definition still works even if (A) were true. Who cares where these beliefs came from? We are just trying to figure out what belongs in a set.

Answer Choice (B) says the epistemological beliefs of medieval epistemologists depended upon their beliefs about non-epistemological matters. Similar to (A), (B) is mapping out the relationship between epistemological beliefs and the scaffolding they stand upon. For example, in order to have biological beliefs, one first needs to have beliefs about chemistry, physics, and ultimately mathematics. Maybe (B) is hinting that the medieval epistemologists’ epistemological beliefs depended on their beliefs about theology. We are talking about medieval epistemologists, after all. But how does this affect our argument? The solution proposed by the historian still works whether (B) is true or not.

Answer Choice (C) says the writings of most medieval epistemologists include passages that are clearly not about epistemology. Of course they would. I am sure medieval biologists, theologists, or anyone else also wrote about other things. But remember we only care specifically about the epistemological beliefs of the epistemologists. It does not matter that they also wrote about
how the conjunction of Mars and Jupiter made them feel strong, confident, and sexy for the whole month. The historian’s solution ignores these non-epistemological (astrological) beliefs, so even if (C) is true, her proposed solution works as well as it ever did.

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This is a Flaw/Descriptive Weakening question.

You might be able to figure out the flaw before looking at the answer choices since we're dealing with a repetitive causal logic flaw.

The official says that six months ago, the fines for parking violations on the city’s streets were raised to help pay for the parking garage that had just opened. Since then, parking violations on our streets have dropped by 50 percent. These are our premises, and here comes the conclusion. Hence, if we want there to be even fewer parking violations, the fines should be raised again.

There is an unstated causal assumption. The official makes this recommendation because she assumes that the fines increasing not only coincided with but caused the reduction in parking violations. This could be true, but remember that two things happened: fines were increased and a new parking garage opened. Do we know that it is not the parking garage that caused the reduction? I mean, it's a parking garage. It's for parking cars. I am not saying it has to be, but simply that the official’s reasoning is flawed because she overlooks this. She assumes increased fines —cause→ reduction without considering parking garage —cause→ reduction.

This error can be phrased in a couple of different ways, but let's first look at how it is phrased in the correct answer choice and then play around with alternative phrasings.

Correct Answer Choice (E) says the argument fails to establish that the initial decrease in parking violations was not due to the availability of additional parking spaces (from the newly opened parking garage). This is great. To establish that the argument’s preferred explanation is correct, we have to establish that it is not the alternative explanation that caused the reduction. But like I said, this is not the only way to phrase this flaw. Let’s look at (A).

Answer Choice (A) says the argument takes a possible effect of a reduction to be a possible cause of that reduction. I think one of the reasons why (A) is attractive is that the correct answer could have been phrased similarly to (A). It could have said that the argument takes a possible cause of a reduction to be the definite cause of that reduction. This could have been the correct answer. It would have been using a positive phrasing, "takes a possible cause..." as opposed to the negative phrasing in (E) of “fails to establish...” but that's fine. There are many ways to phrase the error.

But the problem with (A) is that the argument didn't take the effect of the parking violations going down to be the cause of the fines going up. That is, the argument didn't take the loss of revenue from fewer parking violations to be the cause of increased fines.

Answer Choice (B) says the argument takes for granted that raising fines a second time will reduce parking violations at least as much as it did the first time. Takes for granted is also language that the correct answer could have used. The argument "takes for granted that a possible cause of a reduction is the definite cause of that reduction." But, of course, this is not what (B) says. What (B) says is not even descriptively accurate. The official does not say that raising fines will get us another 50 percent reduction. She merely says, “if we want to further reduce,” and does not say by how much.

But (B) is not great even if it passed the descriptive accuracy test. Say we changed (B) and it now reads, “takes for granted that raising fines a second time will reduce parking violations like it did the first time.” This is better since it is a flaw to assume that something will work a second time just because it worked the first time. But (B) still misses the major flaw that it worked the first time.

Answer Choice (C) says the argument fails to take into account the financial benefits the city is now deriving from fines for parking violations. So it did. Okay, (C) is descriptively accurate. But how is this the flaw? Did the official need to talk about these benefits, like how we might use these funds to hire more traffic police or something? This has nothing to do with evaluating the argument.

Answer Choice (D) says the argument takes for granted that people who park their cars illegally would prefer to park their cars legally. Of course people would prefer to park legally. Okay, I know that some people hate being told what to do and believe that it is their right as red-blooded Americans to park on their neighbor's lawn, but the overwhelming majority of people do not.

(D) is indeed an assumption that runs through the whole argument, because whether it is the fines or the new garage that resulted in the reduction, both carry the assumption that people want to park legally. But the best we can do is to say that (D) is descriptively accurate. But it doesn't describe the flaw.

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This is a Fill in the Blank question.

The question stem says “the conclusion of the argument follows logically if,” which should remind you of Sufficient Assumption questions. And sure enough, there is a premise indicator “since” right before the blank. We are looking for a premise to fill in this blank such that the conclusion follows logically. Once you figured this out, hopefully you will soon see that the rest of this question is just a pure exercise in formal logic. In fact, you drilled this specific argument form in the core curriculum. This is not to say that this is an easy question, only that there is a fair amount of predictability in Logical Reasoning.

The stimulus says that most of the members of Bargaining Unit Number 17 of the government employees’ union are computer programmers. I am going to refer to this as 17. And the relationship between 17 and computer programmers is not that of complete subsumption, but a most relationship.

17 —m→ computer programmers

This is the only premise, and the question jumps straight to the conclusion. Thus it is certain that some of the government employees who work in the Hanson Building are computer programmers. In other words, there must be at least one overlap between these groups.

Hanson ←s→ computer programmers

So the conclusion is a some relationship, but the premise gives us a most relationship. If you recall from the core curriculum, you can use a most relationship to get to a some relationship by supplying another most relationship or something stronger. Unfortunately, all of the answer choices are most statements. So while you can use the process of elimination, it is faster to recall how you can build the correct premise to arrive at the conclusion we want.

The way to do that is to supply this missing premise:

17 —m→ Hanson
17 —m→ computer programmers
_______________
Hanson ←s→ computer programmers

How does this argument work? Say there are three members in 17, and most of them work in the Hanson building. This means I have to take at least two members and scoop them into Hanson. But I also have to take most of 17, at least two members, and scoop them into computer programmers as well. Then these two scoops must intersect by at least one member. And this is exactly what Correct Answer Choice (D) gives us. It says most of the members of Bargaining Unit Number 17 work in the Hanson Building.

Answer Choice (C) says most of the government employees who work in the Hanson Building are members of Bargaining Unit Number 17 (Hanson —m→ 17), so we can chain this to our premise to get:

Hanson —m→ 17 —m→ computer programmers

But two most statements chained up like this don't yield the desired conclusion. Say we took most members of Hanson and dropped them into 17. But 17 could be a humongous set and Hanson could be a tiny set, so this is just a drop in the bucket. Now if we scoop most of 17, there is no guarantee that we will capture a member of the Hanson set. We could, but we could just as well not.

If this does not make sense, you can either review the core curriculum or, better yet, try assigning numbers. Assign a small number for Hanson and a large number for 17 and see how you can make the two most relationships true while making the conclusion that Hanson ←s→ computer programmers false.

Answer Choice (B) is kind of interesting. It says most members of the executive committee of Bargaining Unit Number 17 work in the Hanson Building. Who are these executive committees? We can infer that the executive committee of 17 is some subset of 17. But this subset (the executive committee) could be very small. Nothing in (B) tells us anything about the size of the executive committee. If it's very small, then the fact that most of them are in Hanson merely amounts to a claim that some (not most) members of 17 work in Hanson. That's not powerful enough. Contrast this with the much more powerful most relationship in (D), where we did not carve down into the subset first before supplying the most relationship. (D) just outright said that most of 17 belongs to Hanson. (B) says first, carve down into a subset of 17. Most of that subset belongs to Hanson.

Answer Choice (A) says most of the government employees who belong to Bargaining Unit Number 17 but are not computer programmers work in the Hanson Building. This is really bad. (A) is looking at the intersection of 17 and not computer programmers. (A) takes a most cut of that set and puts them into Hanson. But that's useless because this intersection is already a set of people who are not computer programmers. How does that help us establish that some people in Hanson are computer programmers?

Answer Choice (E) says most of the people who work in the Hanson Building are government employees. So who are the government employees? Well, they are a superset of 17. Remember, 17 stands for Bargaining Unit Number 17 of the government employees' union. So everyone in 17 is a government employee, but government employee is a superset of 17.

(E) says to take the people in Hanson and drop most of them into the government employee superset. Okay, but where do they land in this large government employee superset? We don't know. Will they even land in the 17 subset? No idea.

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This is a Flaw/Descriptive Weakening question.

Lindsey says several people claim that our company was unfair when it failed to give bonuses to the staff. She suggests that perhaps they recalled that the company had promised that if it increased its profits over last year’s, the staff would all get bonuses. However, the company's profit was much smaller this year than it was last year. And the conclusion is that clearly, then, the company acted fairly.

Did the company act fairly? Well, the company promised that if profits increased, staff would get bonuses. Profits did not increase, so that promise just falls away. Sufficient failed, rule disappears.  So what is clear is that the company did not contradict this promise. But that doesn't mean the company acted fairly. That's a much broader claim.

Let’s also look at why people are claiming that the company acted unfairly. Lindsey suggests that they are claiming this because of the promise above. Okay, if that's the case, then they do not have a good claim since the company did not contradict this promise. But if they are claiming that the company acted unfairly for some other reason, then Lindsey is now the one making a flawed argument. The fact is we actually don't know why they are claiming that the company acted unfairly. If you spotted this, you can go hunting for the right answer choice. If not, you can use the process of elimination.

Correct Answer Choice (B) says the argument infers (conclusion descriptor) that an opinion is false merely because (premise descriptor) one potential reason for that opinion has been undermined. Exactly. Lindsey does successfully undermine a potential reason in her premises, but we do not know if people are claiming the company was unfair for that specific reason. That's why Lindsey's inference that the people's opinion is false (that the company didn't act unfairly) is flawed.

Answer Choice (A) says the argument relies on the opinions of certain unnamed people without establishing that those people were well informed on the matter. Sure, people are unnamed here, but Lindsey is not relying on their opinion to make her argument. If anything, she is contesting their opinion. Establishing that those people were well informed on the matter would be important only if Lindsey were trying to make an appeal to those people's authority, like if those people were subject matter experts.

An argument guilty of (A) would look something like the following. The company promised that if profits increased, staff would get bonuses. However, some people told me that profits did not increase. Note how this is different from Lindsey stating that the company’s profit did not increase as a fact. In the former case, it was merely an opinion of some unnamed people, and so to take that opinion as establishing the fact of the matter, we need to know who they were. Like if the CFO told her this, then it's more likely to be true. But if it was just some random employee, then we might be skeptical.

Answer Choice (C) says the argument dismisses (conclusion descriptor) a claim on the basis of (premise descriptor) certain irrelevant attributes of the people who made the claim. While the argument does dismiss the claim that the company acted unfairly, its premise does not say that these people have certain irrelevant attributes.

Here is an example guilty of (C)'s description. "We should pay no attention to the people claiming that the company acted unfairly. This is obvious when you consider that they wore red hats." This would be dismissing a claim on the basis of irrelevant attributes of the people making the claim. That's a specific version of attacking the source of the argument.

Answer Choice (D) says the argument confuses the size of a quantity with the amount by which that quantity has increased. What does this even mean? Say the size of a quantity is a hundred units. But it was originally thirty units. So it increased by seventy units. So I am confusing the hundred units with the seventy-unit increase? How is that even relevant to Lindsey's argument?

I think (D) attempts to lure you in simply by mentioning "quantity" and "increase" and the stimulus said something about profits being larger or smaller.

(D) might be more relevant if we made some major modifications to the stimulus. The sufficient condition in the promise was straight up failed because the company’s profit this year being smaller than last year's means that the company's profits did not increase. But let's change that. The edited promise reads "If the company had any profits at all this year, the staff would get bonuses." And we'll keep the facts the same: the company's profit was much smaller this year than it was last year.

Still a bit of a stretch, but this makes (D) a bit more relevant. Under this modified stimulus, the sufficient condition is triggered by the facts because even if the company’s profits decreased this year, the company still has positive profits. The comparison to last year's profits isn't relevant. And if Lindsey argues that the sufficient condition wasn't met, then she may be confusing a comparative quantity (this year's smaller profit versus last year's larger profit) with an absolute quantity (that there was any positive profit at all).

Answer Choice (E) says the argument overlooks the possibility that a policy can be fair even when it is not generous. I guess Lindsey overlooked this, but so what? (E) would be relevant if people claimed the company was not generous and Lindsey responded that the company was fair. But no such confusion takes place.

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This is a PSA question.

Mateo says global warming has caused permafrost to melt under several arctic villages, forcing all of their inhabitants to relocate at great expense. Then he says that pollution from automobiles is a major contributor to global warming (another premise). Now he's given us a causal chain starting with automobiles and leading to pollution, then global warming, then melting permafrost, and finally, expensive relocation. Here comes the conclusion: the automotive industry should be required to help pay for the villagers' relocation. We have descriptive causal premises leading to a prescriptive conclusion.

In PSA questions, we have the premise (P) and the conclusion (C) and are generally looking for a P → C "rule." And the reason the question stem includes the word "principle" is that the P → C could be stated in terms more general than what you see in the answer choices. And there is a large degree of freedom in how general they will be.

For example, the correct answer could generalize a lot and say any "entity" whose "actions" have some negative consequence must pay for the cost of that consequence. You can take this general principle and apply it to this argument, but you can also apply it to a bunch of other arguments. The correct answer could generalize less and say if an "industrial product" has some negative downstream consequences, then the "manufacturer" must pay to cover the costs of those consequences. This one would apply to a smaller set of arguments than the more generalized principle of entities.

Most PSA questions lay out recurring traps. We find one such trap, that of starting the bridge at the conclusion in Answer Choice (E). It says an industry that contributes to global warming should be required to pay for resulting damage to specific communities only if it has a general obligation to help pay for all damage produced by global warming.

An industry being required to pay is the desired conclusion. So that concept cannot be in the sufficient condition. At best, this rule allows the stimulus to fail the necessary condition (say we had a premise that amounted to the auto industry not having a general obligation to help pay for all damage), therefore concluding the failure of the sufficient (auto industry should not be required to pay for damage to specific communities). That's not what we want. This answer choice is logically wrong.

(E) would have been correct if it said an industry that contributes to global warming should be required to help pay for resulting damage to specific communities, full stop.

Correct Answer Choice (D) says any industry manufacturing a product whose use contributes to costly damage for others should be liable for damages generated by that product's use. This is the P → C rule. The information in our premise triggers the sufficient conditions: any industry (automobile) manufacturing a product (cars) whose use contributes to costly damage (melting-permafrost-induced relocation) for others (arctic villagers). Hence, we can draw the necessary condition as the conclusion: the automotive industry should be liable for damages.

Answer Choice (A) says any industry has an obligation to pay for any damage that it should have known would result from its activities. (A) is pretty good if you strike out “it should have known.” But as it stands, that condition doesn't match the premise and so the sufficient condition in (A) does not trigger. While it might be common sense that cars generate pollution, the long causal chain in the stimulus makes it less reasonable to say that the automotive industry should have known about the results of their activities on arctic villages. (A) exhibits the recurring defect of starting the bridge at the wrong location.

Answer Choice (B) says manufacturers should be required to produce goods in a way that minimizes harm to people and the environment. (B) just tells the automotive industry to change the way it produces cars, but does not help the villagers get paid. This rule delivers the wrong results. Also a recurring defect.

Answer Choice (C) says when the use of a product causes damages, governments should not be required to pay for the damage unless those responsible for manufacturing the product are also required to pay. (C) is saying that if the government is required to pay, then it must be that manufacturing is required to pay. Or, contrapositive, if the manufacturer isn't required to pay, then neither is the government.

This is a strange principle to talk about when you are trying to get arctic villagers paid. Maybe (C) thinks Mateo’s next argument is to petition the government to compensate these villagers, and it is saying that if you want the government to pay, you must first establish that manufacturing has to pay. How bizarre.

This rule also exhibits the recurring defects of failing to match the premise and failing to match the conclusion.

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