Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT5 S1 Q21 Explanation

Whenever a major political scandal

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

TopicsParadox

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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

Whenever a major political scandal erupts before an election and voters blame the scandal on all parties about equally, virtually all incumbents, from whatever party, seeking reelection are returned to office. However, when voters blame such a scandal on only one party, incumbents from that party are likely to be defeated by seek reelection is high and remarkably constant from election to election.

What this question is testing

Paradox

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
21.

If the voters’ reactions are guided by a principle, which one of the following principles would best account for the contrast

Answer choices

  1. Trap10% picked this

    Whenever one incumbent is responsible for one major political scandal and another incumbent is responsible for another, the consequences for the two

  2. Trap11% picked this

    When a major political scandal is blamed on incumbents from all parties, that judgment is more accurate than any judgment that incumbents from

  3. Trap14% picked this

    Incumbents who are rightly blamed for a major political scandal should not seek reelection, but if they do, they should

  4. Trap23% picked this

    Major political scandals can practically always be blamed on incumbents, but whether those incumbents should be voted out of office depends

  5. Correct41% picked this

    When major political scandals are less the responsibility of individual incumbents than of the parties to which they belong, whatever party was

    Why this is right

    Answer E is correct.

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

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