A politician can neither be reelected

Answer choices

1. A

   Correct80% picked this

   The prominent politicians cannot escape censure by

   Why this is right

   As discussed, the rule in the first sentence tells us that if you've been in a serious scandal, you cannot avoid censure. The prominent politicians have been in a serious scandal, so they cannot avoid (escape) censure by their colleagues.

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

   80%
2. B

   Illegal Negation9% picked this

   If there had been no scandal, the prominent politicians would

   This is speculating about something we can't say for sure. We don't know that without the scandal they would have been guaranteed to win. Maybe they were unpopular because of their policies. Maybe redistricting and gerrymandering has increased to where they wouldn't have won even if they won the popular vote. This type of wrong answer occurs when there is conditional logic. Given a conditional rule, such as: If you're a movie star, then you're wealthy We can't ever "flip the illegal light switch" on that and say, If you're not a movie star, then you're not wealthy We know there are lots of other ways that someone could be wealthy. People just tend to get sloppy with their conditional thinking, if it's not a familiar real-world claim like this one that you know is wrong. They gave us: if there's a serious scandal, they won't be reelected It is an illegal negation (flipping that lights witch) to pretend like we therefore know that: if there isn't a scandal, they will be reelected

   9%
3. C

   Illegal Negation6% picked this

   No politician is censured unless he or she is known to be involved in

   This is saying that serious scandals are the only time you get censured? We don't know that. Maybe you also can get censured because you incite an insurrection. Maybe you can get censured for moderate (not serious) scandals too. Maybe you get censured for putting wax in your ears and shouting "la-la-la-la" during political proceedings. Just like (B), this type of wrong answer occurs when there is conditional logic. Given a conditional rule, such as: If A, then B They will try to bait us into picking an answer that says: If not A, then not B This answer is saying: if not involved in serious scandal, then not censured Whereas the paragraph told us this: if involves in serious scandal, then censured can't avoid censure = will be censured

   6%
4. D

   Out of Scope: benefited from scandal0% picked this

   The prominent politicians initially benefited from the conspiracy that caused

   The passage doesn't contain any information about whether the conspiracy benefited the politicians at any point. Since we have no information about it, we can't prove benefit.

   0%
5. E

   Opposite, if anything4% picked this

   Some politicians who are involved in scandalous conspiracies avoid detection

   This would go against this paragraph. We know that any politician involved in serious scandal will be censured. It's possible, of course, that a politician involved in non-serious scandal could avoid censure, but they've given us no evidence in this paragraph that such a thing has ever occurred. I think this trap answer was designed to fool students, who might think, "I though that the rule said these prominent politicians would not be reelected and not avoid censure. But the paragraph only mentions reelection. So I guess they didn't get censured?" We should never be thinking on LSAT that because something wasn't mentioned it's therefore not true.

   4%