Some people think that in every

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Logical Reasoning question.

TopicsMust be False

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Stimulus

Some people think that in every barrel of politicians there are only a few rotten ones. But if deceit is a quality of rottenness, I believe all effective politicians are rotten. They must be deceitful in order to do the job properly. Someone of society will never be an effective politician.

What this question is testing

Must be False

Conclusion

The author lays out two strict rules. First: every effective politician is deceitful. Second: anyone scrupulously honest about obeying the rules of society will never be an effective politician.

Evidence

The reasoning is that effective politicking requires deceit — so honesty is incompatible with effectiveness.

Evaluate

Translate the rules into a logic chain. Effective politician → deceitful. Scrupulously honest → not deceitful → not an effective politician. The two rules together mean: no scrupulously honest person can be an effective politician.

The question asks what cannot be true given these rules. So we need an answer that violates them. The cleanest violation is asserting that a scrupulously honest politician is effective — that's the exact case the rules forbid.

Watch for trap answers that look concerning but are actually compatible with the rules — for instance, "some politicians are scrupulously honest" doesn't violate anything (the rules don't require all politicians to be dishonest, just all effective ones).

Goal

Pick the answer that asserts the existence of an effective, scrupulously honest politician.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question

13.

Assuming that the author’s statements are accurate, which one of the following statements

Answer choices

Compatible2% picked this
Some people think all politicians are
This is just a fact about what some people think. The author tells us all effective politicians are rotten, but the question is what some people think, not what is actually true. People can hold beliefs that align with or differ from the author's view, and the author isn't making any claim about other people's beliefs. This could easily be true.
2%
Compatible5% picked this
Some politicians are scrupulously
The author's rule says scrupulously honest politicians are never effective. The author does not say there are no scrupulously honest politicians at all — there can be plenty of them, just none of them effective. So this could be true.
5%
Compatible3% picked this
Some people define a politician’s job as obeying the rules
This is about how some people define a politician's job, not about what politicians are actually like or what they need to do to succeed. Definitional disagreements don't conflict with the author's claim about which politicians are effective.
3%
Compatible7% picked this
Some deceitful politicians are
The author says all effective politicians are deceitful, but never says all deceitful politicians are effective. There can absolutely be deceitful politicians who are also ineffective — the rule "effective → deceitful" doesn't prevent that. So this could easily be true.
7%
Correct83% picked this
Some scrupulously honest politicians are
Why this is right
This directly contradicts the author's rule. The author says scrupulously honest people about obeying rules of society will never be effective politicians — i.e., scrupulously honest → not effective. But this answer asserts the existence of scrupulously honest politicians who are effective. Both can't be true. If the author's rules hold, this answer cannot.
Skill tested: Must be False · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
83%

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