PT75.S1.Q18 - police captain: the chief of police

2RARE2CARE2RARE2CARE Member
edited January 2016 in General 248 karma
http://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-75-section-1-question-18/
Is it wrong to make this assumption? I think this is an interesting point and if you dont mind, look at PT 75-Section1-#18. I'm assuming the chief of police oversees many precincts, if 7/10 of the precincts under his watch were accepting gifts, isn't it safe to assume that an investigation into the other precincts would be okay? I mean, it seems like a "reasonable assumption" in my opinion. Or maybe the word "graft" just threw me off that I didn't even think B) was possible, B) seems like an uncommon/blatantly obvious kind of flaw that you would think is wrong. To say the accusations are unfounded doesn't make a lot of sense if the chief of police oversees many precincts. I know we can't assume the chief of police sees multiple precincts, but it feels as if it's say to assume this because it happens in real life? Just like say saying it's reasonable to assume a biologist would work in a lab because this happens in real life. Any insight?

Comments

  • quinnxzhangquinnxzhang Member
    edited January 2016 611 karma
    This is basically a conflating sufficient and necessary conditions flaw.

    According to the chief of police, gifts over $100 are sufficient to count as graft. But he says nothing about whether other kinds of gifts count as graft. So it might be the case that gifts between $50-$99 are also sufficient to count as graft. So even if the police captain is sure that no one in her precinct accepted gifts over $100, she still can't be sure that there's no graft in her district because someone in her precinct might have accepted a $99 gift. This is why B is correct.

    Note crucially that the accusations regard the police captain's precinct, not the chief of police's precincts. They're different people. The police captain says that accusations of graft in *HER OWN* precinct are unfounded. She does *not* say that accusations of graft in the *CHIEF OF POLICE's* precincts are unfounded. So even if you make all the assumptions you do about the chief of police's precincts, they're still irrelevant to the police captain's precinct.

    To the general point of your remark, I wouldn't assume the things you did in either of your examples. Maybe it's a reasonable assumption that the chief of police oversees more than one precinct in real life, but I don't think this is a safe assumption on the LSAT. Similarly, maybe it's reasonable to assume a biologist works in a lab in real life, but this isn't a safe assumption on the LSAT -- maybe someone is an exclusively field biologist with no lab setup or something.
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