Critic: The perennial image of the

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

TopicsPrinciple-Conform

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Stimulus

Critic: The perennial image of the "city on a hill" associates elevated locations with elevated purposes. The city's concert hall—its newest civic building—is located on a spectacular hilltop site. But because it is far from the center of the city, it cannot fulfill the purpose of a civic building. An example of downtown area. It encourages social cohesion and makes the city more alive.

What this question is testing

Principle-Conform

Your task

Break the argument into its conclusion and evidence, then do exactly what the question stem asks with that structure.

Common trap

Answers that sound relevant to the topic but don't connect to the argument's actual reasoning.

Winning move

Predict what a right answer must do, then test each choice against the conclusion-evidence 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

The critic's reasoning most closely conforms to which one of the

Answer choices

Opposite4% picked this
A civic building that is located in a downtown area should, if possible, be located
The author is saying that the new concert hall, which is located on an elevated site, does not fulfill the purpose of a civic building. This answer makes it sound like being on an elevated site and being a civic building are connected.
4%
Too Strong: needs2% picked this
A city needs to have civic buildings if it is to
The author certainly seems to be assuming that encouraging social cohesion is part of the purpose of civic buildings, but that doesn't mean that the author is arguing that "If a city didn't have any civic buildings, it would have no social cohesion". That's much stronger.
2%
Opposite, if anything4% picked this
A civic building with an elevated purpose should be located on
The new concern hall is a civic building. (We might assume that hosting concerts is an elevated purpose). And this is saying that such a building should be located on a spectacular site, which the new concert hall is. If the author believed this principle, then he should be happy with where the new concert hall is. But the author's argument sounds unhappy with where the new concert hall is positioned, because he seems to think that civic buildings should be down in the city, making it feel more alive.
4%
Unrelated to Goal4% picked this
The downtown area of a city should be designed in a way that complements the
This principle is about how the downtown area should be designed, but the argument was about whether or not the new concert hall qualifies as fulfilling the purpose of a civic building.
4%
Correct86% picked this
The purpose of a civic building is to encourage social cohesion and to make a
Why this is right
This can be pretty clearly derived from the author's argument. She argues that the new concert hall doesn't fulfill the purpose of a civic building (because it's so far from city-center) while explaining that the art museum does fulfill the purpose of a civic building because it's in a dense area and encourages social cohesion and makes the city more alive.
Skill tested: Principle-Conform · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
86%

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