Q20 - We should accept the proposal

[dan]

20. (C)
Question Type: Application
The main reason given for accepting the proposal is suspicion of the other side’s (the historical society’s) motives in opposing the proposal. We want to choose an answer that uses the same flimsy reasoning. Answer (C) does this. The reason given for suggesting that one should have no more than one haircut per month is suspicion of the beauticians’ suggestion that one should have two cuts per month.

(A) is tempting because it mentions parties that oppose the main conclusion, but it does not use suspicion of the opposition’s motives in order to justify the conclusion that significant works of art should be safeguarded.
(B) does not mention any opposition to the main conclusion.
(D) does not mention any opposition to the main conclusion (the residents are in favor of postponing the construction).
(E) does not mention any opposition to the main conclusion.


#officialexplanation

[cyruswhittaker]

So the last sentence is basically irrelevant to the argument (and to the correct answer choice)?

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Correct, the last sentence does not serve as part of the argument core.

[stjohnmccloskey]

Can I just ask if I'm understanding this right?

The original argument essentially says
we should accept the proposal because the historical society opposes it. The historical society are not to be listened to because they have no commitment to long term economic well being

Answer C essentially says
we should cut our hair at most once per month because the beauticians oppose it. The beauticians are not to be listened to because they do this to generate more business for themselves

A is wrong because the justification does not come from the opposition of a group, the opposition is just mentioned.

Is this right?

[shaynfernandez]

Correct. This is a flawed matching/paralleling question. I see two major components:
1) a prescription: the author is prescribing what one should do.
2) ad-hominem attack: the reasoning (prescription) is based on the characteristics of a group not any logical evidence.

C is the only choice that captures these two elements

[stol1989]

Hmm... Would this argument be valid if it had sentence - economic health is the foremost consideration in deciding whether to demolish the old train station or not?

It seems to me that the flaw lays in relative significance of economic health in comparison with other possible considerations.

Analogy:

Legislature: We should accept the proposal to ban nuclear weapons development because the party that vehemently opposes this is dominated by people who have no commitment to ecological health.
Our constitution states that ecological health is the foremost consideration in any policy our legislature enacts.

Is this argument valid?

[olaizola.mariana]

I share stol1989's concern.

Couldn't the argument be interpreted to say that economic health/well-being is the reason that the station should be demolished, notwithstanding opposition from a group that doesn't care about well-being anyway…?

Please someone weigh in!

[rinagoldfield]

Thanks for your posts! Stol1989 is adding information to the premise – that economic health is the foremost consideration. But the argument doesn’t say that! We have to stick with what the argument actually says. The argument explicitly indicates the premise with the word BECAUSE. It says “We should demolish BECAUSE the people who oppose the demolition are bad.”
The econ health stuff is relevant to the argument, but it isn’t part of the premise, which was clearly pointed to by the key word “because.”

[andreperez7]

Thanks for your posts! Stol1989 is adding information to the premise – that economic health is the foremost consideration. But the argument doesn’t say that! We have to stick with what the argument actually says. The argument explicitly indicates the premise with the word BECAUSE. It says “We should demolish BECAUSE the people who oppose the demolition are bad.”
The econ health stuff is relevant to the argument, but it isn’t part of the premise, which was clearly pointed to by the key word “because.”

@Rinagoldfield

So unless a sentence has an adverb or word connecting it to the conclusion, then we shouldn't consider it a part of the argument? I thought this stimulus was giving two premises: that the opposition has differing values, and that taking the suggested action would remove an "impediment to development."

Aren't there LSAT arguments given without such signalling language, such as "after all" and "because," as seen in ID the main conclusion questions??

[ohthatpatrick]

That @ has no functionality, but it was worth a try.

You're correct. She was overdoing it there. The final sentence also serves as evidence that we should stop preserving the old train station and demolish it already.

I will say, there have been times when I have been fished into thinking about too many different possible things for a given argument, and later when I see that the correct answer has leaned heavily on the idea connected to premise indicator language (like because, since, after all, for), I kick myself a little and think, "Damn, they were advertising that this was the supporting idea they cared most about."

So while it's definitely an overstatement to say the because-claim is THE premise, we might suspect its the "Main premise".

[andreperez7]

@ ohthatpatrick

Understood. Take those premise-indicators as "BIG HINTS," but there's nothing carved in stone.

Thank you very, very much for the reply.