PT25.S2.Q22 - it is an absurd idea

skrishnan

Took me a lot of time to get this
How can we break it down to get to the correct answer choice faster?

https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-25-section-2-question-22/

BinghamtonDave

The primary way that I can think of to save time on this specific question would be to be deeply familiar with the mechanics of this question itself and be ready to dispense that understanding if something like this should pop up again. I did this question when I read your post and it took me nearly 6 minutes to be confident in my reasoning before I looked at the answer choice. The question is a bit odd because I (off the top of my head) cannot think of something that has previously conformed to this reasoning.

I personally don't like the reasoning in this question because I am strained to understand precisely what standard we are asked to call this valid. Meaning, this is not presented to us as a "flawed method of reasoning" but rather simply a method of reasoning. In addition to that, the only thing I could think of when I was doing this problem is that if the author of the stimulus says "it is absurd to think X" and "X" is a conditional, doesn't that mean that we negate the conditional? Colloquially, wouldn't the phrase used in the reasoning in the passage mean something like: "it is absurd to think that if a man is married then he is a bachelor." Meaning we are denying the conditionality of "Married---->Bachelor"
So for this problem, I cannot come up with a good reason why we wouldn't take "it is absurd to think that: "Government support----->Allow to mean "Government support and allow"

The problems I have with this problem are compounded by the premise offered in support for the conclusion. Essentially, if we grant the premises a kind reading, they are a restatement of the conclusion. The premises say:
"Government subsidy---->allow" That to me at least reads to be the same thing contained in our conclusion.

One way around the confusion in this problem that I see is to look at the premise as the super set that contains the conclusion. Meaning if we are told that
Allowed---->government subsidy (and we grant the validity of this)
therefore
Allowed---->government support

We could possibly say that support flows from subsidy, meaning support is a necessary condition of subsidy. Then if we have Allowed---->government subsidy--->government support.

I believe this line of reasoning is wrong because the argument calls the conclusion listed above "absurd." So it cannot stand as is.

I'm actually going to reach out to @akistotle for a bit of help on this. Have you come across a problem like this before in your cookie cutter review?

In conclusion, I have not subjected this problem to my normal review: 20+ reads over the course of an hour, so there are probably several holes in my understanding as expressed above.

David