PT81.S3.Q16 - Tenants who do not have

Rev_Lefe

Hi, I really struggle to see why (A) doesn't weaken the first sentence in the stimulus "Tenants who do not have to pay their own electricity bills do not have a financial incentive to conserve electricity."

I find "by paying more rent" in A somewhat ambiguous; does it mean that the rent increase as more electricity the tenants used? Or, does it mean the rent for the tenant is more than that for other tenants who need to pay for their electricity?

I thought that, for the tenants who don't need to pay rent, paying more rent is itself a financial disincentive to waste energy, and thus it is a incentive to not to waste (conserve) energy. Am I mistaken somewhere?

Could anyone help explain these two questions? Thank you very much.

Admin Note: https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-81-section-3-question-16/

DhulBillow

Starting off with the passage it can be summed by saying those that, those who dont pay for their own electricity don't have a reason to conserve energy therefore if we give them a reason by adding meters we will conserve energy. The shift in focus I think will help because we want to focus on how the actions of the landlord will lead to the effects they want. What A is doing is literally attacking the premise its saying that "Well actually tenants do have a financial incentive" which is not a fair way (LSAT wise) to attack the argument, we must attack the support structure. Here is a similar one: I have no reason to exercise, X wants to exercise so they will put a monitor on me and make me pay money if I don't, therefore I will exercise. We can talk about how exercising is actually good for me and that there is reason for me to exercise but thats not the focus. Hopefully thats a little bit cleared. As for the correct answer it points that an alternative solution, tenants who don't pay for their own electricity have lower energy consumption because their landlords have energy conserving appliances, and if we switch to the meters we don't know for certain if they what will happen to this current practice that already saves energy. Will it increase energy consumption? Will it lower? We don't know and just creating that level of doubt is enough to weaken the question.