Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Easy

PT126 S4 Q12 Explanation

Politician: Those economists who claim

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

TopicsFlaw

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Stimulus

Politician: Those economists who claim that consumer price increases have averaged less than 3 percent over the last year are mistaken. They clearly have not shopped anywhere recently. Gasoline is up 10 percent over the last year; percent; propane, 13 percent; bread, 50 percent.

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. Not Ad Hominem1% picked this

    impugns the character of the economists rather than addressing

    The author snips a little bit, "Looks like they haven't shopped in my town", but that doesn't count as impugning their character. And the author definitely does address their argument by citing products that are counterexamples to the "less than 3% increase" claim.

  2. Opposite1% picked this

    fails to show that the economists mentioned are not experts in the area

    The author is disagreeing with these economists, so he's not under any burden to establish that they're experts. If he were relying on their testimony, agreeing with them, then we would like to know that they're experts.

  3. Bad Evidence Match9% picked this

    mistakenly infers that something is not true from the claim that it has not been

    The author does infer that something is not true: "it's not true that prices have gone up less than 3% on average", But the author presents specific examples to show that prices have gone up more than 3%. She doesn't have a premise that sounds like, "but the economists have produced insufficient evidence that prices have gone up less than 3%". This answer describes the famous flaw Unproven vs. Proven False.

  4. Correct88% picked this

    uses evidence drawn from a small sample that may well

    Why this is right

    This is a small sample, since five commodities is not a lot of data points (given that there are probably thousands of commodities). Note that the answer doesn't say that the sample is likely to be unrepresentative, because the argument didn't provide any crumbs that would incline us to think that way. But it is allowing for the possibility that these are unrepresentative.

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

  5. Bad Evidence Match1% picked this

    attempts to persuade by making an

    Nothing in the evidence is an appeal to emotions. It's just a list of five products that have all gone up more than 3%. This answer choice refers to the famous flaw Inappropriate Appeals.

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