Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Easy

PT103 S3 Q4 Explanation

The government has spent heavily

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

TopicsRole

Keep going in LSAT Lab

  • Save & drill this skill — build targeted practice sets from questions like this one

  • Video walkthroughs — watch every question solved step by step

  • 81 official LSATs — as questions, timed sections & full-length tests

Start practicing free

Free to start

Full official LSAT questions are available through LawHub. This page provides LSAT Lab's explanation, strategy, and review tools without republishing the full official question.

Stimulus

The government has spent heavily to clean groundwater contaminated by toxic chemical spills. Yet not even one spill site has been completely cleaned, and industrial accidents are spilling more toxic chemicals annually than are being cleaned up. More of the government’s budget should be redirected to preventing spills. Since prevention is far is less than the amount spent annually on one typical cleanup site.

What this question is testing

Role

Your task

Break the argument into its conclusion and evidence, then do exactly what the question stem asks with that structure.

Common trap

Answers that sound relevant to the topic but don't connect to the argument's actual reasoning.

Winning move

Predict what a right answer must do, then test each choice against the conclusion-evidence gap.

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

The question
4.

The proposal about how the government’s budget should be redirected plays which one of the following roles

Answer choices

  1. Contradicted: unsupported1% picked this

    It represents an unsupported

    This is not a speculation, it's a recommendation. And it's very supported. In fact, it's so supported it's the Main Conclusion.

  2. Wrong Role7% picked this

    It both supports another claim in the argument and is supported

    This answer describes an Intermediate Conclusion, but the claim they're asking us about is the Main Conclusion. The Main Conclusion isn't supporting any other claim.

  3. Correct85% picked this

    It is the claim that the argument as a whole is

    Why this is right

    "The claim that the argument as a whole is structured to support" is another way of saying the Main Conclusion, which is what we were looking for.

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

  4. Presuppositions Aren't Visible3% picked this

    It is a presupposition on which the argument is

    It's always kind of funny when a Role question calls one of the explicit claims we say an "assumption / presupposition", since those are invisible.

  5. Out of Scope: another proposal4% picked this

    It presents an objection to another proposal mentioned in

    We could say that this claim presents a recommendation that runs counter to a current practice. But their isn't any "other proposal" mentioned in the argument. There is just the status quo -- spending very little on prevention and very much, ineffectively, on cleanups -- and there's the author's suggestion.

Continue the review in LSAT Lab

Save this question, watch the video walkthrough, and drill similar questions in your LSAT Lab account.

Save and practice this skill
LSAT Lab

Turn this review into a targeted study plan.

Save this question, drill more like it, watch the video walkthrough, and track your progress in your LSAT Lab account.

Start practicing free