Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT21 S2 Q15 Explanation

In most corporations the salaries

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

TopicsPrinciple-Conform

Keep going in LSAT Lab

  • 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

Free to start

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

In most corporations the salaries of executives are set by a group from the corporation's board of directors. Since the board’s primary mission is to safeguard the economic health of the corporation rather than to make its executives rich, this way of setting executives’ salaries is expected to prevent excessively large salaries. corporation and can expect to benefit from setting generous benchmarks for executives’ salaries.

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
15.

Which one of the following practices is vulnerable to a line of criticism most parallel to that used in the

Answer choices

  1. Correct48% picked this

    in medical malpractice suits, giving physicians not directly involved in a suit a major role in determining the

    Why this is right

    The physicians not directly involved are meant to be unbiased judges. But ... since they may one day be sued for malpractice, they're incentivized to make damages low, so that the general expectation for malpractice damages is a lower number (thus benefiting them if they're ever sued and have to pay out damages).

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

  2. Not Unbiased30% picked this

    in a legislature, allowing the legislators to increase their own salaries only if at least two- thirds of them vote

    This is a totally biased source deciding on its own pay. There's no hidden incentive based on their other activities -- there is an obvious incentive relating to their role as legislators.

  3. No Hidden Incentive1% picked this

    on a factory floor, giving workers an incentive to work both fast and accurately by paying them by the piece but counting

    This is another case of the incentive being straightforward and transparent. There also isn't the component of a "supposedly unbiased" judge. The selfish incentive for the board of directors and for the non-connected physician in the malpractice case is not immediately apparent.

  4. No Hidden Incentive4% picked this

    in a sports competition decided by judges’ scores, selecting the judges from among people retired from that

    This seems to be a case of genuinely unbiased judges. We don't know anything about these judges that would make us think they might have a vested interest in judging things a certain way.

  5. No Indirect Incentive17% picked this

    in a business organization, distributing a group bonus among the members of a task force on the basis of a confidential evaluation, by each

    These judges all have a direct incentive to offer negatively biased evaluations of the other members contributions, because that would potentially increase their share of the bonus pool. In the original (and the correct answer), it seems like the judges have no reason to be biased in THIS matter, but because they might be helped in ANOTHER matter, it gives them an indirect incentive to be biased in this matter. In this argument, the judges would have a direct incentive to be biased in this matter.

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