Q23 - If a piece of legislation is the result

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Flaw

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Recent trade agreement represents a series of compromises among the concerned groups.
Evidence: If legislation is the result of a series of compromises among the concerned groups, it won't satisfy any of those groups. In the case of this recent trade agreement, all of the groups are unsatisfied.

Answer Anticipation:
If we're doing Flaw and we see conditional logic, then 90% of the time they'll be testing the Conditional Logic flaw.

Indeed, we have a mistaken reversal here. The author's premise to conclusion move is "BECAUSE groups are not satisfied, WE KNOW legislation was result of compromises between these groups", whereas the rule said "if legislation is the result of compromises, then groups are not satisfied".

LSAT frequently describes this error by saying that the author confused sufficient with necessary.

Correct Answer:
B

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Famous flaw: Circular reasoning. Almost never ever correct. This conclusion is not a restatement of a premise. There's no premise that says "this recent trade agreement was the result of compromises".

(B) Yup! Here's our "nec vs. suff" answer. Compromise always LEADS to unhappy groups (a result). But just because we see unhappy groups with the recent trade agreement, we don't have to think that it HAD to be the result of compromise. Maybe other conditions also lead to unhappy groups, and maybe THAT's what's really going on with this trade agreement.

(C) Famous flaw: Equivocation. Almost never correct. All repeated terms are used consistently.

(D) Extreme Assumption: the author didn't need to assume that there has never been and never will be any piece of legislation that satisfies all competing interest groups.

(E) It does base a conclusion about a particular case on a general principle. However, the general principle is totally applicable to the particular case! The only problem is that the author read the rule backwards.

Takeaway/Pattern: This is more or less a freebie, late in the section. Conditional Logic flaw is the most commonly recurring flaw in modern tests. We should know it, recognize it, and find the "nec vs. suff" answer if it's there.

#officialexplanation

[AriS860]

Now the obvious answer is B and I thought it was probably B, but after agonizing I chose E. The reason is the premise talks about a piece of legislation, but then the conclusion talks about trade agreement (which is not necessarily a piece of legislation, nor is it necessarily a governmental trade agreement) thus as as they are not necessarily related that the conclusion and general principle are not necessarily talking about the same kind of case. And thus while B is a correct flaw so is E. Do you get what I’m trying to say and do you think it’s a valid argument? I scored really well on the test but this question has been driving me insane for months, as it seemed like the perfect kind of trick the LSAT might do.

[GolddiggerF208]

I still cannot get why (B) is correct. I fully agree with Patrick's explanation of the argument. But I think (B) should be "It concludes that a condition leads to a result merely from that condition is necessary for the result." In the argument, the premise is about the general logic statement and the conclusion is about the specific trade agreement. So the answer needs to be concluding the conclusion (the causation re the trade agreement) from the premise (the general logic statement). Could anyone help me?