Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT105 S1 Q6 Explanation

We should do what will

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

TopicsMust be True

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Stimulus

We should do what will make others more virtuous and not do what will make others less virtuous. It is an irony of human existence that praise makes those who are less virtuous more virtuous, while it makes those who course, none except the more virtuous deserve praise.

What this question is testing

Must be True

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
6.

From the statements above, if true, which one of the following can

Answer choices

  1. Out of Scope9% picked this

    We should withhold praise from those who deserve

    Out of Scope: deserve it least Opposite, if anything We only talked about deserving praise in an absolute sense, not a relative sense. The last sentence gives us a way to say, in on/off language, you do deserve praise or don't deserve praise. It allow us to rank the severity of people who don't deserve praise (Eddie, you deserve less praise than Sharon, but Kevin deserves the least praise). This answer also goes against the gist of what we read. The people who deserve praise the least (if we pretend we can speak that way) would be the "less virtuous", and those are the people that this paragraph is saying that we should praise.

  2. Opposite, if anything13% picked this

    We should not fail to praise those who deserve

    We inferred that you should praise people who don't deserve it you shouldn't praise people who deserve it So this answer seems to be contradicting that 2nd inference.

  3. Correct65% picked this

    We should praise those who do not deserve it and withhold praise from those

    Why this is right

    We inferred that you should praise people who don't deserve it you shouldn't praise people who deserve it This answer seems to be saying both of those things. Less virtuous people don't deserve praise (per 3rd sentence), but praising them would make them more virtuous (per 2nd sentence), so we should do it (per 1st sentence). More virtuous people (some of them, at least) deserve praise (per 3rd sentence), but praising them would make them less virtuous (per 2nd sentence), so we should not do it (per 1st sentence).

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

  4. Contradicted3% picked this

    We should praise everyone, regardless of whether or not they

    Praising More virtuous people makes them less virtuous (per 2nd sentence), so we should not do it (per 1st sentence).

  5. Contradicted11% picked this

    We should withhold praise from everyone, regardless of whether or not

    Praising Less virtuous people makes them more virtuous (per 2nd sentence), so we should do it (per 1st sentence).

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