Logical Reasoning

PT104 · S1 · Q15 Tony: Few anarchists have ever

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

  • 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

Tony: Few anarchists have ever performed violent actions.

Tony's Conclusion (therefore)

The special association in the public mind between anarchism and political violence is unwarranted.

Tony's Evidence

Few anarchists have ever performed violent actions, and these few are vastly outnumbered by the violent adherents of other political ideologies.

Keisha's Implied Conclusion

The association between anarchism and political violence may be warranted.

Keisha's Intermediate Conclusion

The proportion of anarchists who are violent is possibly greater than that of other ideologies.

Keisha's Premise

Anarchists have always been few in number, whereas other ideologies have often spawned mass movements.

Evaluate

When we're describing someone's Method of response, it normally takes one of these forms: - Suggests alternate explanation - Raises overlooked consideration - Calls out dubious assumption - Shows undesirable implications of 1st person's logic

In this case, Keisha seems to raise an overlooked consideration that reframes the original evidence.

Yes, violence by other ideologies outnumbers violence by anarchists, if you look at raw numbers. But if you look at percentages / rates, maybe not.

In order words: If there are 100 anarchists, and only 10 engage in violence, that's 10% of anarchists.

Meanwhile: If there are 1,000,000 people in a mass movement of some other ideology, and 10,000 of them engage in violence, that's only 1% of them that are violent.

Keisha's point is that the public perception that anarchists are more associated with violence could be true, in a relative sense (even though it's not true in the absolute sense).

15.

Keisha responds to Tony's argument in which one of the following ways?

  1. Correct

    She shows that Tony’s conclusion

    Why this is right

    Keisha is showing that the public's association between anarchism and political violence may be warranted, if we look at political violence as a percentage of the underlying population, not in raw numbers. Tony's argument involved absolute numbers. Few anarchists have performed violence. Those few are vastly outnumbered by violent people from other political persuasions. Keisha's rebuttal talks about the proportion of anarchists that have committed violence, compared to the proportion of other adherents who have.

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

    85% picked this

  2. She attempts to undermine Tony’s

    Too Strong: incompatible

    The words "incompatible / inconsistent" in a logical context mean "contradictory". Nothing Keisha said was contradicting evidence that Tony offered. She just wanted to express the same stats he was looking at in Relative terms, rather than Absolute terms. Almost every Method of Response question has an incorrect answer like this, that says the second person denied / contradicted the first person's evidence. We know on LSAT that when make rebuttals, we're (almost) never saying the original premises were false.

    9% picked this

  3. She questions the accuracy of

    Bad Evidence Match

    This is similar to (B) in that it's another one of those trap answers that says the second person tried to say the first person's evidence was false / wrong. Nothing Keisha said impugned the facts Tony presented. She accepts that the number of violent actions from anarchists are smaller in number than those from adherents of other political ideologies. She's just suggesting that we think about what % of total anarchists vs. total other-adherents those raw numbers represent.

    4% picked this

  4. She presents evidence that the

    Bad Evidence Match

    Nothing Keisha says sound like, "Anarchists and adherents of other political ideologies have nothing important in common".

    1% picked this

  5. She indicates that Tony has

    Bad Evidence Match

    Nothing Keisha says addresses the "criteria Tony has adopted for including certain people".

    2% picked this

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