Q14 - Editorial: A recent survey shows that 77 percent

by **ohthatpatrick** Fri Dec 31, 1999 8:00 pm

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Government must address the rising crime rate.
Evidence: 77% of people feel like crime is increasing and 87% feel like criminals should get tougher sentences.

Answer Anticipation:
This author relies entirely on what people "feel". What people feel doesn't necessarily match what actually is the reality. Yet the conclusion acts as though 'the rising crime rate' is factually true.

Correct Answer:
D

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) "Inconsistent" means "contradictory" on LSAT. These two survey results are not contradictory. In fact, they're somewhat complementary.

(B) The people being SURVEYED might assume this, but our author doesn’t need to assume this to reach her conclusion. She needs only to assume that 1. People are correct about their feelings toward increasing crime and that 2. When the crime rate increases, the government should firmly address it.

(C) The conclusion is about "the rising crime rate", which is present tense. If a survey 20 years ago talked about a falling crime rate, it would have no bearing on whether we currently address a rising crime rate.

(D) Yes! Fails to distinguish between X and Y … Confuses X with Y …. Mistakes X for Y …. these types of answer choices are saying, "We were talking about THIS in the Premise, but now the author's talking about THAT in the Conclusion!" So if you can match the two halves of these answers to the argument core, they are good answers. Here, "actually rising" points to the Conclusion and "people's believing that the crime rate is rising" points to the evidence.

(E) Red flag: presumes + [Extreme]. The MOST effective means? The author doesn't make this extreme assumption. In fact, the author doesn't need to have ANY assumptions about tougher sentences. Since the conclusion doesn't involve tougher sentences, that part of the survey has no bearing on this author's argument.

Takeaway/Pattern: It's interesting to look at this flaw in the so-called "post-truth" world of fake news and unsubstantiated claims from our political leaders. It's a nice refuge to live in the LSAT world, where there's a clear and important difference between perception and reality.

#officialexplanation