LSAT 103 – Section 3 – Question 04

LSAT 103 - Section 3 - Question 04

September 1998

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT103 S3 Q04
+LR
Argument part +AP
Net Effect +NetEff
A
0%
157
B
3%
160
C
95%
167
D
1%
149
E
1%
156
132
140
149
 +Easier 148.537 +SubsectionMedium

The government has spent heavily to clean groundwater contaminated by toxic chemical spills. Yet not even one spill site has been completely cleaned, and industrial accidents are spilling more toxic chemicals annually than are being cleaned up. More of the government’s budget should be redirected to preventing spills. Since prevention is far more effective than cleanup, it makes little sense that the entire annual budget for prevention is less than the amount spent annually on one typical cleanup site.

Summarize Argument
The author thinks that the government should spend more on preventing chemical spills, rather than focusing primarily on cleaning them up. Why should we believe this? First, the current strategy is slow and is not keeping up with new spills; this shows us that something needs to change. Second, the author tells us that prevention is more effective than cleanup; this indicates what the change should be. Finally, we learn that the current annual spending on prevention is less than even one cleanup site costs per year; this highlights the urgency of the situation. All together, everything in the argument leads to the conclusion that we should spend more on prevention rather than cleanup.

Identify Argument Part
The claim about how the government’s budget should be redirected is the main conclusion of the argument.

A
It represents an unsupported speculation.
The proposal of redirecting the budget is not unsupported; in fact, everything else in the argument supports it.
B
It both supports another claim in the argument and is supported by others.
The proposal of redirecting the budget does not support anything else in the argument. It receives support, but it’s the main conclusion, so the support ends there.
C
It is the claim that the argument as a whole is structured to support.
This correctly describes that the proposal of redirecting the budget is the author’s main conclusion, and is supported by everything else in the argument.
D
It is a presupposition on which the argument is explicitly based.
The author never makes an explicit presupposition, so this wouldn’t be true of any part of the argument. Also, the claim about redirecting the budget is supported by other claims, not assumed (or presupposed).
E
It presents an objection to another proposal mentioned in the argument.
There is no other proposal mentioned in the argument. The author is arguing for a change from the current policy, but there are no competing views about what the change should be.

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LSAT PrepTest 103 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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