Logical Reasoning

PT14 · S2 · Q17 Consumer activist: By allowing major airlines

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Consumer activist: By allowing major airlines to abandon, as they promptly did, all but their most profitable routes, the government's decision to cease regulation of the airline industry has worked to the disadvantage of everyone who lacks access to a large metropolitan airport.

Activist's Claim

The government's decision to deregulate the airlines and allow major airlines to abandon all but its most profitable routes has worked to the disadvantage of everyone who lacks access to a large metropolitan airport.

Industry Representative's Implied Conclusion

This decision worked to the benefit of people.

Industry Rep's Evidence

Any place where a major airline abandoned a route, regional airlines moved in and now there are more flights in and out of most small airports than there were before.

Evaluate

Since the rep's implicit conclusion is that , we could state linking assumptions like,

"more flights = an advantage" "flying on a regional airline = advantage"

But since this situation is a pretty messy Net Gain / Loss type of comparison, we'll probably see a Defender answer, so let's think of possible objections.

How could the situation, on balance, be worse for someone who doesn't have access to a large airport? They now have more flights coming in and out of their local small airport, but those flights are run by regional airlines not a main airline.

So objections could be like,

Goal

Let's look for an answer ruling out an objection or otherwise feeling like what would need to be true in order for "more flights, but via regional airlines" to qualify as an advantage for consumers.

17.

The industry representative’s argument will not provide an effective answer to he consumer activist’s claim unless which one of the following is true?

  1. No small airport has fewer

    Too Strong: no

    The author hedged his wording a little and said that "there are more flights into and out of most small airports". So we can't say he was assuming that all the small airports had the same or more as before.

    18% picked this

  2. When permitted to do so

    Too Strong: each

    The author hedged his wording a little and said that "where major airlines moved out", suggesting that in some places major airlines did not move out. So we can't say he was assuming that all major airlines abandoned all their less-profitable routes. It wouldn't hurt the argument in the slightest if there were one major airline that kept one of its less-profitable routes.

    6% picked this

  3. Correct

    Policies that result in an

    Why this is right

    This is a weird hybrid of Linking and Defending. As we predicted, there are linking assumptions like "more flights, via regional airlines = an advantage". This answer is stupidly presenting that as "more flights, via regional airlines = not a disadvantage". Whenever we see a ruling-out "not" in a Necessary Assumption answer, we get very enticed, since so many correct answers have that form. We also react by negating it. If we remove the "not", does it become an objection? "Policies that result in an increase in the number of flights to which consumers have easy access do generally work to the disadvantage of consumers". That would definitely weaken. After all, the government's policy change resulted in an increase in the number of flights at these smaller airports. The argument concerns "everyone who lacks access to a large metro airport", so the idea is that they easy access to these small airports". If the policy change generally worked to the disadvantage of consumers, then the activist was correct! This basically body slams the Industry Rep's conclusion that "On the contrary, it was to everyone's advantage!"

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

    62% picked this

  4. Regional airlines charge less to

    Strengthens vs. Necessary

    This certainly would add more credence to the representative's claim that this policy change has resulted in a more beneficial situation than before. But it's not needed. The author's argument could work merely if there are more flight options than before. As long as there is any improvement (that isn't offset by some negative), the rep can argue that it's been a net gain. If we negate this and say, "the regional airlines don't charge less for a given route than the major airlines did", that doesn't weaken. If the negation said, "the regional airlines do charge more", then that would weaken.

    9% picked this

  5. Any policy that leads to

    Too Strong: any

    On any test earlier than PT70 or so, we'd be safe rejecting this answer by thinking, "Whoa, this is WAY too strong. The author is only talking about one narrow situation within the airline/airport industry. She hasn't committed to some sweeping principle that holds true in all fields." But on modern LSATs, the correct answer to Necessary Assumption is often a conditional reasoning move like this, so our job is to think about whether this conditional reasoning move matches a reasoning move our author made in the argument. policy leads to an increase ? to the long-term in # of competitors in a field adv of consumers Did this policy change lead to an increase in the number of competitors in a given field? It's unclear. Where major airlines moved out, regional airlines moved in. But we have no idea whether the before or the after involves more airlines. The author's reasoning move is more like, "If a policy change leads to there being more flights in small airports than before, then it's to the advantage of everyone who lacks access to a large metropolitan airport".

    5% picked this

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