Journalist: The trade union members

Answer choices

1. A

   No Historical Pessimism3% picked this

   The company will downsize unless more stock is issued. Furthermore, if the company downsizes, the shareholders will demand a change. Since no more stock

   The first sentence gives us a requirement: we need to issue more stock. If this matched the original argument, it would have a premise that says "in past cases, we didn't issue more stock". This conclusion is also pretty airtight, whereas the original argument hinges on a reasonable but loose assumption that what was true in the past will be true again this time.

   3%
2. B

   No Historical Pessimism8% picked this

   Rodriguez will donate her paintings to the museum only if the new wing is named after her. The only other person the new wing

   We start off with a requirement: the new wing must be named after her. To match the original, we would need a premise that sounds like, "Judging by the past, the new wing isn't gonna be named after her". This argument also commits a Necessary vs. Sufficient flaw. The premises establish that Rodriguez will be the person the new wing could be named after, but the first sentence doesn't guarantee that in such a case Rodriguez will definitely donate her paintings.

   8%
3. C

   Bad Conclusion Match3% picked this

   Reynolds and Khripkova would not make suitable business partners, since they are constantly squabbling, whereas good business partners know how to get along with

   Something vaguely sounds like two requirements: if you're gonna be good business partners, you have to be able to get along with each other most of the time and you have to be able to resolve quarrels. There's a little bit of, "Judging by history, these two people won't be able to meet those conditions" since it says they are constantly squabbling. But we're missing the original's extra ingredients: someone is planning to do something. The requirement relates to the one means of avoiding that. Once the requirement is drowned by historical pessimism, the argument is supposed to conclude that the plan will likely happen.

   3%
4. D

   Correct80% picked this

   Lopez will run in tomorrow's marathon. Lopez will win the marathon only if his sponsors do a good job of keeping him hydrated. But

   Why this is right

   Not perfect, but closest. In the original, a union was planning to strike and the conclusion is that they likely will strike. In this one, a person is planning to run a marathon, and the conclusion is that he likely will not win it. That's very different. LSAT seemed to only give us the part of the argument that was "requirement for X + historical precedent that the requirement won't happen = X unlikely to happen" Lopez is running in A is planning to do X tomorrow's marathon He'll win it only if Something hinges sponsors keep him on Y hydrated His sponsors are in past cases known to be bad Y didn't happen at hydrating Thus, Lopez Thus, It probably won't probably won't have X win.

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

   80%
5. E

   No Requirement / Historical Precedent5% picked this

   The new course in microeconomics is offered either in the fall or in the spring. The new course will be offered in the spring

   The conditional here is a sufficient: if we have a qualified instructor, we'll do spring. It doesn't say that's the only way we'll do it in the spring. And then there's no historical precedent making it sound like in the past we couldn't find a qualified instructor.

   5%