Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Easy

PT131 S3 Q5 Explanation

Challenger: The mayor claims she

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

TopicsFlaw

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Stimulus

Challenger: The mayor claims she has vindicated those who supported her in the last election by fulfilling her promise to increase employment opportunities in our city, citing the 8 percent increase in the number of jobs in the city since she took office. But during her administration, the national government relocated an The 8 percent increase merely represents the jobs held by these newcomers.

Mayor: Clearly my opponent does not dispute the employment statistics. The unemployed voters in this city want jobs. The 8 percent increase in the number of jobs of any of my predecessors.

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
5.

As a response to the challenger, the mayor's answer is flawed in

Answer choices

  1. Out of Scope1% picked this

    takes for granted that those who supported the mayor in the last election believed job availability to be

    Out of Scope: "those who supported the mayor" The mayor is stating/assuming that unemployed voters want jobs. That's all we know about what she believes about her citizens. We wouldn't be able to accuse her of assuming anything else about any of her citizens.

  2. Irrelevant Distinction2% picked this

    does not consider whether the number of unemployed persons within the city represents more than 8 percent

    No one is comparing the 8% job growth to the unemployment rate. No one is arguing that she completely wiped out unemployment. She's just saying 8% job growth is higher than the job growth achieved by previous mayors.

  3. Correct94% picked this

    fails to address the challenger's objection that the 8 percent increase did not result in an increase in job availability for those who lived

    Why this is right

    This is saying that the mayor completely ignored the thrust of the objection: "Yes, 8% more jobs, but none of our local citizens were eligible for those jobs; they were staffed by national outsiders."

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

  4. Out of Scope: "altered priorities"1% picked this

    ignores the challenger's contention that the influx of newcomers during the mayor's administration has increased the size of the voting

    The challenger was never saying, "Hey, you've brought in these outsiders, increased the voting base, and changed the priorities of our constituency". We can infer that the voting base has probably increased, but we have no idea if voting priorities have changed, and the challenger was certainly not contending that they had.

  5. Bad Premise Match2% picked this

    explicitly attributes to the challenger beliefs that the challenger has neither

    The mayor explicitly attributes to the challenger the belief that employment statistics reveal an 8% uptick in number of jobs. The challenger did assert / imply that.

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