Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Medium

PT144 S2 Q13 Explanation

Some of the politicians who strongly

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

TopicsMust be True

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Stimulus

Some of the politicians who strongly supported free trade among Canada, the United States, and Mexico are now refusing to support publicly the idea that free other Latin American countries.

What this question is testing

Must be True

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
13.

If the statement above is true, which one of the following must

Answer choices

  1. Out of Scope: support extending2% picked this

    Some of the politicians who now publicly support extending free trade to other Latin American countries did not support free trade among

    We only heard about people who don't publicly support extending. We have no information about people who do support it, so we can't derive this idea from the paragraph. This answer is trying to bait people into thinking that hypocrisy works both ways. "If there were 'hypocrites' who supported it for Canada, the United States, and Mexico but won't publicly support it for others, then are hypocrites who publicly support it for others but didn't support it for Canada, the United States, and Mexico". This is like if we said, "Some people who have never served in the military are nevertheless in favor of going to war" and an answer said, "Oh, well then it must be true that some people who have served in the military are not in favor of going to war".

  2. Out of Scope: support extending4% picked this

    Not all politicians who now publicly support extending free trade to other Latin American countries strongly supported free trade among Canada,

    Whenever we see negative statements, we translate them into their positive form: No A's are B = All A's are ~B Few A's are B = Most A's are ~B Not all A's are B = Some A's are ~B So this answer is saying, "Some politicians who publicly support extending to other Latin American countries did not support free trade among Canada, United States, and Mexico." We only heard about people who don't publicly support extending. We have no information about people who do support it, so we can't derive this idea from the paragraph.

  3. Out of Scope: changed their position4% picked this

    Some of the politicians who strongly supported free trade among Canada, the United States, and Mexico have changed

    This isn't precise enough to pick. "Changed their position" doesn't clearly refer to whether or not they publicly support an idea. A politician's position on an issue is not necessarily the same as whether they've publicly supported an issue. There might be some reason why these politicians are now refusing to publicly support extending free trade to other countries, even though privately they would support extending it. It also might be that "their position on free trade" is conditional. Maybe they their position is "free trade should exist between nations that have a GDP over $500 billion", and the other Latin American countries don't meet that qualification. In that case, their position could remain entirely constant, and the implication of their position is that free trade should be happening among Canada, United States, and Mexico but not among other Latin American countries.

  4. Correct80% picked this

    Not all politicians who strongly supported free trade among Canada, the United States, and Mexico now publicly support extending free trade

    Why this is right

    Whenever we see negative statements, we translate them into their positive form: No A's are B = All A's are ~B Few A's are B = Most A's are ~B Not all A's are B = Some A's are ~B So this answer is saying, "Some politicians who strongly supported free trade among Canada, United States, and Mexico do not publicly support extending free trade to other Latin American countries." Yes, that Must Be True. It's literally a reiteration of the statement we were given.

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

  5. Too Strong: publicly oppose10% picked this

    Some of the politicians who strongly supported free trade among Canada, the United States, and Mexico now publicly oppose extending free trade

    We know that some politicians that supported free trade among Canada, United States, and Mexico refuse to support publicly extending that trade, but "refusing to publicly support" is different from "publicly opposing". You can always take the cowardly option of just not making public statements one way or the other (if you refuse to publicly support but don't want to publicly oppose).

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