Logical Reasoning

PT137 · S4 · Q2 Spokesperson: Contrary to what some

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Spokesperson: Contrary to what some have claimed, our group's "Clean City" campaign has been a rousing success.

Conclusion

Our group's "Clean City" campaign has been a rousing success.

Evidence (after all)

The amount of trash on the city's streets today is significantly lower than when the campaign began.

Evaluate

If we wanted to articulate the Linking assumption going down, it would sound like,

If today's street trash then campaign level is much lower → was a rousing than before campaign success

But it's more likely that this type of causal interpretation is testing our ability to think through the lens of causality, not conditional logic.

The evidence presents a Curious Fact (an asymmetric comparison): Why is there way less trash on the streets nowadays than there was when the "Clean City" campaign first started?

And then the author's conclusion implies a causal assumption. His explanation for why there's less trash is that the campaign successfully caused people to behave differently, in such a way that there's less trash on the streets.

We always evaluate Explain Curious Fact arguments along their two pressure points: 1. could there be some Alternate Explanation for the curious fact? 2. how plausible is the Author's Explanation?

Goal

Look for an answer ruling out an Alternate Explanation for why there's less trash on the street nowadays. (e.g. )

Or look for an answer dealing with some idea that is necessary for the author's explanation to seem plausible (e.g. the Clean City campaign had at least some messaging that related to getting trash off the streets).

2.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the spokesperson's argument?

  1. Correct

    The amount of trash on

    Why this is right

    This has the lovable ruling-out "not" that we always slow down for on Necessary Assumption (the hallmark of a Defender answer). When we negate this, by removing the "not", does it weaken? Yes! If we say, "Yo, author, the amount of trash was declining at the same rate or even faster than it is now before the campaign" then it doesn't sound like the campaign made any difference in cleaning up this street trash. This answer, when negated, makes the author's explanation seem implausible. People refer to this type of answer as Effect without Cause. How could we credit the trash reduction we're seeing these days to this campaign, if the rate of trash reduction hasn't improved since the campaign began? (it may even have gotten worse!) The supposed Effect (reducing trash rate) was present even before the supposed Cause (the campaign) was present.

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

    87% picked this

  2. Those who claim that the

    Out of Scope: awareness of critics

    This answer is targeting an inessential rhetorical flourish in the first sentence, which isn't part of the main clause and thus isn't part of the conclusion. The argument has nothing to do with what critics do or don't believe. The author is arguing that the campaign is a success based on the reduced amount of trash since the campaign began, and we're only meant to examine assumptions separating those two ideas.

    5% picked this

  3. The campaign has been more

    Too Strong: more than any ever

    The author is only claiming that this campaign has been a rousing success. That doesn't mean she's claiming that it's the most rousing-est successful-est campaign of all time.

    1% picked this

  4. The spokesperson's group did not

    Irrelevant: spokesperson

    This answer deals with the character who is speaking this paragraph. There's never been an LSAT question for which we care what name is said before a paragraph. It doesn't make a difference whether a name introduces a paragraph or whether it's just a paragraph. We treat it exactly the same. So "the spokesperson" doesn't even exist in the argument. The argument is, CONC - campaign rousing success (why?) EVID - less trash now than when campaign started

    0% picked this

  5. The amount of trash on

    Too Strong: declined steadily

    The author is definitely assuming that the amount of trash on the streets has declined over the course of the campaign, otherwise it wouldn't make sense to call it a success. But the author doesn't need to assume any specific rate of decline. It doesn't matter if it declined steadily or logarithmically or unevenly. A campaign might have a lot of effect initially and then taper off. It might have little effect initially and then hit a tipping point where it makes a big difference. It might be slow and smooth. Who cares. None of those are crucial to deeming the campaign a success at reducing trash.

    7% picked this

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