Logical Reasoning

PT107 · S1 · Q21 Editorial: The government claims that

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Editorial: The government claims that the country’s nuclear power plants are entirely safe and hence that the public’s fear of nuclear accidents at these plants is groundless.

Statements

Govt:

causal difference-maker (did X because Y) Govt:

conditional (only if, must) Govt: .

Evaluate

This is a tall drink of water, but if we ever see conditionals, those become center stage. We want to see if conditionals chain together and whether they can be applied to any of the other facts in the stimulus.

These two conditionals in the 2nd to last sentence have a common ingredient, "claims sustained", so we should chain them together:

Unlimited liability Claims can be injury poses threat → sustained against → from of bankruptcy nuclear industry nuclear accident

Can we apply this chain to any of the provided facts?

Well the 2nd sentence did talk about limiting liability because of threat of bankruptcy. So if the government thinks that unlimited liability poses a threat of bankruptcy to the nuclear industry, then it apparently thinks that injury claims could be sustained against the nuclear industry, so then it apparently thinks that injuries from nuclear accidents might occur.

But wait, didn't the first sentence reassure us that there are no grounds to fear about nuclear accidents?

If the government is worried about the nuclear industry's unlimited liability in the event of a nuclear accident, they're worried that people will sustain injury claims from a nuclear accident, which means the government must think there is some reason to worry that there could be a nuclear accident.

So the government is kind of contradicting itself. If they really thought nuclear accidents were never going to occur, then it wouldn't matter whether or not the nuclear industry is protected from exorbitant liabilities in the event of an accident.

Goal

It's hard to know what the answer will say, but by synthesizing the conditional chain and applying it to the other facts, we seem to be looking at a government that is sort of contradicting itself. Look for a safely worded answer expressing that takeaway, or any other answer we can prove from the passage.

21.

If all of the statements offered in support of the editorial's conclusion correctly describe the government's position, which one of the following must also be true on the basis of those statements?

  1. The government’s claim about the

    Too Strong: False

    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% picked this

  2. Correct

    The government’s position on nuclear

    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% picked this

  3. The government misrepresented its reasons

    Same as (A) Unsupported: misrepresented reasons

    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.

    10% picked this

  4. Unlimited financial liability in the

    Too Strong: pose no threat

    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% picked this

  5. The only serious threat posed

    Too Strong

    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% picked this

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