Editorial: The government claims that

Answer choices

1. A

   Too Strong: False20% picked this

   The government’s claim about the safety of the country’s nuclear power

   When LSAC knows they've provoked us to make a prediction on Must Be True / Most Supported, they usually but a very tempting-but-broken version of that prediction in spot (A). This is going overboard. If Pam said "X" and "not X", she contradicted herself. But which one is true and which one is false? We don't know. Similarly, the government is simultaneously acting like "there's no good reason to think there might be an accident" and "there's good reason to worry about what would happen in an accident". But we don't know which one is valid and which is invalid. This answer choice is arbitrarily choosing one of the ideas to be true and one to be false. We could say "the government's claim about the safety of nuclear power plants goes against their statements concerning the liability threat of the nuclear industry".

   20%
2. B

   Correct59% picked this

   The government’s position on nuclear power plants

   Why this is right

   This is more safely stating where we're at than (A) was. We know the government has basically contradicted itself ("inconsistent claims" = contradictory claims) by saying that there's no reason to fear an accident at these plants while also contending a few other ideas, which combine to imply that the government believes that there is threat of nuclear accident.

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

   59%
3. C

   Same as (A) Unsupported: misrepresented reasons11% picked this

   The government misrepresented its reasons for acting to limit the nuclear

   We know that the government said A and said B and that those two conflict. Choice (A) was saying they were lying when they said A (nuclear plants are safe). This answer is saying they were lying when they said B (we need to limit liability to protect nuclear from threat of bankruptcy). We don't know from the paragraph which of those two positions is the "true" one and which is the misrepresentation.

   11%
4. D

   Too Strong: pose no threat7% picked this

   Unlimited financial liability in the case of nuclear accidents poses no threat to the financial security of

   This is yet another variation of what (A) and (C) did. In fact, this answer is so equivalent to the meaning of (C), that it would prevent either one of them from being correct (there can't be two correct answers). The government's reason for limiting the nuclear industry's liability was that "unlimited liability poses a threat to the financial security of the nuclear industry". According to this answer, that claim was false. So therefore the government misrepresented their reason (or they were confused about whether liability really does present a threat). In any case, (A), (C), and (D) are taking the conflict we have between "no reason to fear an accident" and "there is reason to take steps to avoid financial calamity in the case of an accident", and arbitrarily deciding which of those conflicting ideas is the true one and which is the false one.

   7%
5. E

   Too Strong4% picked this

   The only serious threat posed by a nuclear accident would be to the financial security

   Too Strong: the only Only Thing Mentioned ? Only Thing This is a classic trap answer style. If the passage only mentions that strawberries are high in fructose, this trap answer will say "other types of berries are not high in fructose". This passage only mentioned financial liability threat posed by a nuclear accident, so this trap answer is distorting that into, "financial liability is the only threat posed by a nuclear accident".

   4%