Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Medium

PT122 S4 Q12 Explanation

Politician: The huge amounts of

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

TopicsFlaw

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Stimulus

Politician: The huge amounts of money earned by oil companies elicit the suspicion that the regulations designed to prevent collusion need to be tightened. But just the opposite is true. If the regulations designed to prevent collusion are not excessively burdensome, then oil companies will make profits sufficient to motivate the very the highest among all industries. Clearly, the regulatory burden on oil companies has become excessive.

What this question is testing

Flaw

Your task

Describe the reasoning error the argument actually commits.

Common trap

Answers that name a real logical flaw the argument doesn't actually make.

Winning move

Articulate the gap in the reasoning yourself, then match it to the choice that describes that 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
12.

The reasoning in the politician’s argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds

Answer choices

  1. Correct77% picked this

    fails to justify its presumption that profits sufficient to motivate very risky investments must be the

    Why this is right

    Answer A is correct.

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

  2. Trap1% picked this

    attacks the character of the oil companies rather than the substance

  3. Trap14% picked this

    fails to justify its presumption that two events that are correlated must also

  4. Trap6% picked this

    treats the absence of evidence that the oil industry has the highest profits among all industries as proof that the oil industry does not

  5. Trap3% picked this

    illicitly draws a general conclusion from a specific example that there is reason to

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