Legislator: Your agency is responsible

Answer choices

1. A

   Out of Scope: blame for scandals9% picked this

   shifting the blame for the scandals to

   This is tempting because it's only one word-off. The regulator is shifting the blame for the under-hiring of investigators. The regulator is saying, "The fact that we could only hire 400 investigators wasn't our choice. It was because you guys set the salary for the position so low that we couldn't find 500 qualified people wiling to work for that little money." But the response isn't saying, "we didn't cause the scandal the investigators are investigating. You guys caused the scandal."

   9%
2. B

   Correct88% picked this

   providing information that challenges the conclusion drawn by

   Why this is right

   This is just a bland answer, but it's certainly applicable to the stimulus. The regulator is saying, "The fact that we could only hire 400 investigators wasn't our choice. It was because you guys set the salary for the position so low that we couldn't find 500 qualified people wiling to work for that little money." Since it wasn't their choice to hire under 500 investigators, that hurts the legislator's conclusion, that the regulators purposely limited hiring.

   Skill tested: Method · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

   88%
3. C

   Out of Scope: insufficient mandate3% picked this

   claiming that compliance with the legislature’s mandate would have been an

   This answer says that the regulators claimed that "hiring 500 investigators wouldn't have been a sufficient response". That doesn't make any sense, because if you thought 500 was not sufficient then you would hire more than 500, not less than 500 as the regulators did.

   3%
4. D

   Out of Scope: rephrasing conclusion1% picked this

   rephrasing the legislator’s conclusion in terms more favorable to

   The legislator's conclusion was, "the regulators purposely limited hiring so that the scandal wouldn't be fully revealed". The regulator's response offers an alternate explanation for why hiring was less than the intended 500, and by offering an alternate explanation, the regulator certainly is cast in a more favorable light. ("We weren't purposefully trying to limit the investigation; we just couldn't find enough qualified applicants.") But since the regulator's sentence doesn't mention anything about whether or not they were trying to prevent the full extent of the scandal from being uncovered, it's not apt to say that her sentence is a rephrasing of the conclusion. There are too many new ideas (starting salaries / qualified applicants) and missing ideas (attempting to prevent the full scandal from coming to light) to qualify as a rephrasing

   1%
5. E

   Too Strong: self-contradictory0% picked this

   showing that the legislator’s statements are

   This is a common trap answer when we're doing Method of Response: saying the first person contradicted themselves. So far, it's never been correct. It's very rare for there to be self-contradictions on LSAT. It's one of the 10 Famous Flaws, but only because it shows up so frequently as an incorrect answer choice. Nothing the regulator says would show that two of the legislator's claims are contradictory.

   0%