Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT135 S1 Q16 Explanation

Activist: Any member of the city

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

TopicsSufficient Assumption

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Stimulus

Activist: Any member of the city council ought either to vote against the proposal or to abstain. But if all the members abstain, the matter will be decided by the city's voters. So at council should vote against the proposal.

What this question is testing

Sufficient Assumption

Your task

Find the assumption that, if added, guarantees the conclusion follows.

Common trap

Answers that only partly bridge the gap, leaving the conclusion unproven.

Winning move

Identify the new term in the conclusion and pick the choice that links it to the evidence.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
16.

The conclusion of the activist's argument follows logically if which one of the

Answer choices

  1. Unclear Impact13% picked this

    If all the members of the city council abstain in the vote on the proposal, the city's voters will definitely decide

    That the the city’s voters will definitely decide in favor of the proposal doesn't guarantee the conclusion that "at least one council member should vote against the proposal (to avoid that scenario from coming true)". This relies on a further assumption that the proposal should not pass. If we say, "Doing X leads to Y. Thus, you shouldn't do X", then we are assuming, "You shouldn't do Y". This answer is saying, "If everyone abstains, then the voters will pass this proposal." And we have a conclusion saying, "Thus, we shouldn't have everyone abstain (i.e. at least one person should vote against)." So we would need the assumption, "We shouldn't allow this proposal to pass" in order to reach that conclusion. Without that additional assumption, this answer doesn't have the power to prove the conclusion.

  2. Correct66% picked this

    The proposal should not be decided by the

    Why this is right

    This is saying that [something that would happen if every member of the city council abstained] should not occur. Thus we should not let every member abstain. Thus, since the members are forced to abstain or vote against, we need at least one member to vote against.

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

  3. Unrelated to Goal4% picked this

    No members of the city council will vote in favor of

    This doesn't give us any reason to argue against all city council members abstaining.

  4. Negated / Reversed Premise14% picked this

    If not every member of the city council abstains in the vote on the proposal, the matter will not be

    This negates the second premise.

  5. If-Conclusion Unrelated to Goal2% picked this

    If one member of the city council ought to vote against the proposal, the other members should abstain in

    This gives us no reason why we need to avoid having all members abstain. And since the trigger here closely resembles the Conclusion, we can remind ourselves that "If-Conclusion ..." is always wrong.

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