Q24 - Families with underage children

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Necessary Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Our first sentence gives us context on a problem, so it's great as background, but it's not too relevant to the argument itself. Rather, we get a premise (a rare one that has "should" in it, which more commonly shows up in our conclusion) telling us that we should give parents extra votes on behalf of their kids. From this, we conclude that these families will be properly represented.

Answer Anticipation:
This argument seems to mostly come down to distilling it into the base form: Since we're giving parents extra votes, those families will be fairly represented. When we have an argument with a very straightforward distillation, we should generally be on the lookout for an answer that just bridges the gap between the two sides. Let's look for an answer that says something about allowing these proxy votes resulting in fair representation.

Correct Answer:
E

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Too specific/out of scope. Since our argument never defines "fairness", saying that direct proportionality is fair is an assumption. Also, we don't know that attention is the same as fair representation.

(B) Opposite (if anything). The argument wants to give votes to parents as a proxy for their kids. If anything, this answer cuts against that recommendation.

(C) Out of scope. While this answer choice probably comes across as a true statement to most, it's irrelevant to the argument. We care about fair representation, not what's in the best interests of the child, and those two things don't have to align.

(D) Out of scope. The problem as set up by the argument is about the amount of attention given to these problems, not whether the interests are favored. Also, the group in question - families with underage children - does have members with the right to vote, so this answer doesn't really apply cleanly to them.

(E) This answer deals with the content of the argument, so it's relevant. Negation test time! If a group can't be fairly represented when some members are voting on behalf of others, then our plan here doesn't result in fair representation, and our argument falls apart. This also has weak language ("can"; "some"), which is a good sign in a Necessary Assumption question.

Takeaway/Pattern: Make sure to stick to the scope of the argument! Also, answers that are very specific and very strong tend to be incorrect in Necessary Assumption questions.

#officialexplanation

[andrewgong01]

I see it in two different ways

1) Families [under the proposal the argument implies/proposes] would get fair representation. THEREFORE parents should be given additional votes

2) Parents should be given additional votes, THEREFORE Families receive fairer representation

To be honest, the latter one, which though correct, seems to make less sense because the premise is talking about "should" and not "Parents have been given additional votes and THEREFORE they now have fairer representation. Is there something else missing here that would make the latter one more accurate?

The first one has a conclusion that makes sense and the premise seems to make sense however it is weird in that it requires us to interject an idea from the "conclusion" into the premise for it to make sense.


Thankfully, the question initself did not require us to know which is the conclusion because it was obvious that the gap hinged on fair representation = additional votes (or vice versa) and there was only one choice that gave this gap and hence the actual order of the two elements in the answer choice does not matter ( I am suprised there wasn't some trap answer choice that reversed the order; it seems like a good trap for peoplle like me who did not know the conclusion)

[andrewgong01]

I see it in two different ways

1) Families [under the proposal the argument implies/proposes] would get fair representation. THEREFORE parents should be given additional votes

2) Parents should be given additional votes, THEREFORE Families receive fairer representation

To be honest, the latter one, which though correct, seems to make less sense because the premise is talking about "should" and not "Parents have been given additional votes and THEREFORE they now have fairer representation. Is there something else missing here that would make the latter one more accurate?

The first one has a conclusion that makes sense and the premise seems to make sense however it is weird in that it requires us to interject an idea from the "conclusion" into the premise for it to make sense.


Thankfully, the question initself did not require us to know which is the conclusion because it was obvious that the gap hinged on fair representation = additional votes (or vice versa) and there was only one choice that gave this gap and hence the actual order of the two elements in the answer choice does not matter ( I am suprised there wasn't some trap answer choice that reversed the order; it seems like a good trap for peoplle like me who did not know the conclusion)

Reply to my earlier post, it seems like later on this LSAT exam had an equally hard question in getting a conclusion : https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/foru ... hp?t=17339
However, based of this question's answer key (the one linked above) it is suggesting that the one that is more of an opinion should be the conclusion but in this question "should" has a greater thrust as an opinion than families now have greater representation

[MingL143]

I see this question type as a necessary assumption. So i was looking for something like "The current principle do not allow parents with underage children to give fair representation for their children" in the answer choice, therefore I chose D

[ohthatpatrick]

Interesting. I see where you got that.

Since the conclusion is claiming that "giving extra votes to cast on behalf of the underage kids" would thus achieve fair representation, the argument has to assume that the current system does not achieve fair representation.

But if you think about how the premise to conclusion move works, it's this:
"if parents had additional votes to cast on behalf of their kids, then it would be fair representation."

It seems like you're looking for a "fake opposite" (illegal negation) type idea:
"in the current system, where only adults can vote and parents don't get extra votes, then it is not fair representation"

We're only allowed to say the author is assuming
"if the premise, then the conclusion"

We can't accuse the argument of assuming
"if not the premise, then not the conclusion"

(D) is providing a rule that says
"If lawmakers favor voters over nonvoters, then it is not fair"
so we could get rid of it because the author is only trying to prove that something is "fair". He doesn't have to assume anything about what is "not fair".

(E) is more directly connecting the premise to the conclusion. It's saying that "if one some members of a group (parents) vote on behalf of other members (kids), it's still possible that the kids would be fairly represented".

If we negated that, it would be saying "kids are NOT fairly represented if someone else is voting on their behalf", which of course badly weakens the argument.

I got to this answer not by thinking about an "if, then" bridge idea, as much as by thinking of a "how would I argue the anti-conclusion" objection.

I thought, "How would I argue that this wouldn't be fair representation?" and my first thought was "Just because your parents have extra votes doesn't mean that they will cast them in the way YOU want them to. Maybe they'll SAY they're gonna cast your vote for Bernie, but then they double down for Hillary."

That made (E) speak to me a bit more.