PT34.S2.Q18 - editorialist: the positions advanced

airborne1

I got the MP but I wanted to further analyze... Could someone review my thought process please? (This is a question in CC!)

Part of the stimulus: "But there is a positive role to be played even by these extremists for the social &political inertia that attends environmental issues is so stubborn that even small areas of progress can be made only if the populace fears environmental disaster..."

• Does "only if" introduce necessary condition? Thus would the diagram be the following: Small areas of progress can be made --> populace fears environmental disaster (or the other way around...?)

• Since it's a conditional statement, it's wrong for A to assert that "little progress that HAS BEEN MADE in improving the environment is mainly due to the fear created by radical environmentalists." We don't know in the stimulus if the progress has actually been made-- it just gives us a conditional. Is it safe to say that (A) requires you to assume something that we have no basis or support for?

• Someone had commented, "(For the sake of practice) Notice the gap in the argument – author assumes that the radical environmentalists incite fear in the populace through false extremes (possibly about unlikely environmental disasters) and thereby, allows the possibility for small progress to occur (this is the positive role)." Is this correct? Could someone shed more light into this gap in the argument/ any other flaws?

https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-34-section-2-question-18/

airborne1

Bump! Anyone?

sandy180

@airborne1 AC A is a mess! Yes it is wrong to say. The only "logical" thing would be to say "since there have been no populous fear of environmental disaster than no areas of small progress have been made." Your conditional translation of the sentence is correct. However it is merely a premise.