Self-study
Support Since Professor Smythe has been head of the department, the most distinguished member of the faculty has resigned, fewer new courses have been developed, student enrollment has dropped, and the reputation of the department has gone down. █████ █████ ███████ ██████████ ████████ ████ █████████ ██████ ███ █████████ ██ █████████ ███ ███████████
Mens Rea: A Guilty Mind
The difference between various mental states and reality is commonly tested on the LSAT, not least because it's highly relevant in the law. For example, the concept of intention (which this question tests) is absolutely core to the jurisprudence of criminal law, where it's known as mens rea. Intention to cause harm is one of the key differences between manslaughter and murder.
Here's a very, very distilled summary of the argument through this lens:
Premise: Professor Smythe's appointment led to [a bunch of stuff].
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Conclusion: [All that stuff] is the reason why Professor Smythe was appointed.
To be thorough, the phrase "was appointed to undermine…" is what holds the intentionality. It's more clear if you read it as "was appointed in order to undermine…"
5.
The reasoning in the argument ██ ██████ ███████ ███ ████████
a
overlooks the fact ████ █████████ ███ ████ ███ ██████████ ███ █████ ██ ████ ███████ ███████ █████ ██ ████ ███████
(A) gestures toward the same mental state v. reality flaw category as the correct answer – just because people think something is bad doesn't mean it's bad in fact.
But the conclusion isn't "the department is bad in fact."
b
bases a general █████ ██ █ ███ ███████████ █████████
I actually think (B) is pretty tempting if you think hard about it. Maybe the general claim is about how Smythe was appointed to ruin everything, and that's based on just a few examples of stuff Smythe ruined. That's pretty good, IMO.
The response to this strong reading, though, is just that the word "exceptional" is off-base. We have no reason to think these instances are rare, or irrelevant, or unrepresentative. In fact, they're all obviously-important measures of departmental success.
c
assumes that because ██ ██████ ███ ████████ ██ █ ███████ ███ ██████ ███ ██████████ ██ █████ █████ ████ ██████
Just because something happened in the world doesn't mean it happened intentionally. If I threw a ball and it hit you in the head, that doesn't mean I threw the ball in order to hit you in the head. It could have been an accident.
d
fails to distinguish ███████ █ ███████ ██ ████████ ███ █ ███████ ██ ███████
There are for sure some
e
presupposes what it ████████ ██ █████████
This points to circular reasoning, a common flaw which you should aspire to know by name and recognize in this answer choice.
If this were right, we'd have a premise saying something like "They appointed Smythe in order to ruin things."