Logical Reasoning

PT149 · S1 · Q3 Enrique: The city's transit authority

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

  • Save & drill this skill — build targeted practice sets from questions like this one

  • Video walkthroughs — watch every question solved step by step

  • 81 official LSATs — as questions, timed sections & full-length tests

Start practicing free

Enrique: The city’s transit authority does not have enough money to operate for the next twelve months without cutting service or increasing fares, and the federal government has so far failed to provide additional funding.

Enrique's Claims

1. The transit authority doesn't have enough money to operate for the next 12 months without cutting service or increasing fares.

2. The federal govt. has so far failed to provide additional funding.

3. The transit authority should keep operating w/o service cuts or fare increases until it runs out of money.

4. One it's run out of money, the federal govt. will provide funding to save it.

Cynthia's Responses

1. no comment 2. no comment 3. Disagrees. Cynthia seems to be arguing that the transit authority should not just keep the status quo and let themselves run out of money. 4. Disagrees. Cynthia isn't saying it's impossible that the federal govt. will swoop in and provide funding, but she says it's more probably that it will just let the authority go out of business.

Goal

Let's look for an answer dealing with claim 3 or claim 4.

3.

The dialogue most strongly supports the claim that Enrique and Cynthia disagree over whether

  1. Correct

    the transit authority should continue

    Why this is right

    This deals with Claim 3, which was one of the two claims we could tell Cynthia disagreed with. We can infer this answer choice from Enrique's statements, because he explicitly says it in his 2nd sentence. We can infer the disagree position from Cynthia. She believes the transit authority should not try this plan of operating w/o cutting service or raising fares until it runs out of money. She says that the transit authority cannot risk the potential backfire of that plan, which would be running out of money and having the federal government say, "Well --- I guess you're not a sustainable venture. We're going to just let you go out of business."

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

    92% picked this

  2. the federal government should provide

    Unsupported Both

    We can't support the Agree or Disagree position here. Enrique and Cynthia both only spoke to would / wouldn't the federal government provide additional funding if the transit authority ran out of money. Neither of them spoke to should / shouldn't the federal government kick in some money.

    1% picked this

  3. it would be better for

    Unsupported Both

    We couldn't infer this position or the disagree version of this position from either paragraph, because neither person discusses the relative merits of "cutting services while maintaining fares" vs. "maintaining services while increasing fares".

    0% picked this

  4. the federal government is willing

    Unsupported Agree Position

    Technically, we probably can't even infer the disagree position, but since Enrique said that "the feds so far have failed to provide additional funding", we could somewhat support the claim that "the feds are not willing to provide additional funding to the transit authority now". But we certainly can't derive the Agree position from Cynthia. She doesn't say anything that would support the claim that "the feds are willing to provide additional funding right now".

    5% picked this

  5. the transit authority can afford

    Unsupported Agree Position

    This relates to Enrique's claim 1, which we know Cynthia didn't comment on, so this can't be the answer. But there's no way we could infer this claim from either person's statements: "they don't cut services + they don't receive funding, but they CAN afford to operate for the next 12 months"

    1% picked this

Continue the review in LSAT Lab

Save this question, watch the video walkthrough, and drill similar questions in your LSAT Lab account.

Save and practice this skill
LSAT Lab

Turn this review into a targeted study plan.

Save this question, drill more like it, watch the video walkthrough, and track your progress in your LSAT Lab account.

Start practicing free