Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT159 S1 Q15 ExplanationFaculty member: The university’s financially minded

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

TopicsFlaw

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Full official LSAT questions are available through LawHub. This page provides LSAT Lab's explanation, strategy, and review tools without republishing the full official question.

Stimulus

Faculty member: The university’s financially minded president holds that some academic programs should be eliminated because they do not serve student demands. According to him, the university is a business and the students are consumers, and it is the responsibility of any business to satisfy consumer demand. But the education of students in claiming that academic programs should be tailored to suit student demand.

What this question is testing

Flaw

Conclusion

The faculty member says the president is wrong that academic programs should be shaped by student demand.

Evidence

The president's reasoning relies on a business-and-consumer analogy, and the faculty member points out that education is not really like providing consumer goods.

Evaluate

Here is the move to watch. Showing that the president's reasoning is bad is not the same as showing the president's conclusion is wrong. The president's recommendation might still be right for some other reason — even if the analogy is bad.

Imagine a friend says, Pointing out that the moon-full reason is bad doesn't prove we shouldn't buy umbrellas. Maybe it's about to rain.

Goal

Find the answer that calls out: rejecting a view just because the reasons given for it are inadequate.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question
15.

The faculty member’s argument is most vulnerable to the criticism

Answer choices, explained

  1. Bad Description19% picked this

    argues for a view without showing that an argument against that

    The faculty member is not arguing for a positive view (e.g., "academic programs should be set without regard to demand"). The faculty member is only arguing against the president's view. So this answer about "arguing for a view" without addressing counter-arguments does not match what the faculty member is actually doing.

  2. Inappropriate Appeals1% picked this

    appeals to popular opinion to justify

    The faculty member does not appeal to popular opinion. The argument hinges on the disanalogy between education and consumer goods, not on what most people believe. There is no appeal to popularity in the reasoning.

  3. Bad Description19% picked this

    treats merely analogous things as

    This describes a flaw the president allegedly committed (treating universities and businesses as identical). The faculty member is the one pointing that out, not committing it. The faculty member's flaw is on the other side: rejecting the president's conclusion based on bad reasoning rather than independently arguing the conclusion is wrong.

  4. Ad Hominem2% picked this

    improperly attacks the university president’s moral

    The faculty member calls the president "financially minded" but does not attack the president's moral character. The argument is about the merits of the president's reasoning, not about their integrity. Even granting the descriptor as somewhat dismissive, the argument's actual reasoning is not based on character attacks.

  5. Correct59% picked this

    rejects a view on the grounds that someone has given inadequate reasons for

    Why this is right

    This is the flaw exactly. The faculty member shows that the president's reasoning is inadequate — the analogy between education and consumer goods does not hold. From "the president's reasoning is bad," the faculty member jumps directly to "the president's view is wrong." But that is illegitimate. Even a bad argument for a view leaves the view itself untouched; the view could still be correct on different grounds. Rejecting a view solely because the reasons given for it are inadequate is precisely the mistake.

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

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