LSAT 158 – Section 4 – Question 01

LSAT 158 - Section 4 - Question 01

May 2020

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT158 S4 Q01
+LR
Weaken +Weak
Link Assumption +LinkA
A
1%
151
B
2%
148
C
7%
150
D
91%
161
E
0%
145
132
140
147
 +Easier 148.293 +SubsectionMedium

The government’s tax collection agency has not followed through on its plan, announced a year ago, to crack down on violations of corporate income tax law. Audits are the primary tool for detecting such violations, and over the past year, not a single audit of corporate income tax returns has been completed.

Summarize Argument
The author believes that the government’s tax collection agency has not followed through on its initiative to crack down on violations of corporate income tax law. This is because audits, which are the primary tool to detect these violations, have not been completed a single time through the year-long duration of the initiative.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that just because the audits have not been completed, they have yielded no important information about these corporations and the agency has not taken any meaningful steps to implement their plan.
The author also assumes that not completing audits within a year demonstrates a lack of action from the agency to follow through with their initiative.

A
The plan to crack down on violations of corporate income tax law is part of a broad campaign against corporate misconduct.
This is irrelevant because it does not address the reasoning between the lack of audits and the agency's failure to follow through on its initiative.
B
The number of personal income tax returns audited over the past year is greater than in previous years.
You have to assume that this explains why no corporate audits were completed. This is far too large of an assumption to make. Also, the argument is not focused on “personal” income taxes
C
Most audits of corporate income tax returns do not reveal any significant violations.
Just because “most” audits do not reveal significant violations, does not challenge the author’s claim that they are the most effective way for finding violations.
D
It generally takes longer than one year to complete an audit of a corporate income tax return.
This provides an alternative explanation for why the audits were not completed. If they typically take longer than a year, then the lack of completed audits could be attributed to a cause other than incompetence.
E
Over the last five years, fewer audits of corporate income tax returns have been completed than in the preceding five years.
While this indicates that the number of completed corporate audits is decreasing, it does not challenge the author’s reasoning between a lack of audits and whether the agency failed to follow through.

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LSAT PrepTest 158 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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