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I had a total deer in the headlights moment with this question. I just didn’t even know what to think after reading the stimulus aside from why noncompliance would have been ok at the local but not national level and the solution JY has seems to have come out of nowhere. I was under the impression that national law must have been the more restrictive set of rules because noncompliance with it was unacceptable while it might have been ok with local but it’s the opposite. Could someone break this down for me in the simplest way possible, premise by premise?
Admin Note: https://7sage.com/lsat_explanations/lsat-68-section-2-question-16/
Comments
Defendants argument (the context):
Conclusion- Penalties shouldn't be imposed (even though I'm admitting to noncompliance)
Premise- I was confused about national and local codes
Judge's argument (the meat of the question):
Conclusion- The defendants excuse (defendant's argument) is unacceptable
Concession statement (not a premise, but it does contain a relevant piece of information)- This excuse might be ok if he was charges with noncompliance for local codes
Premise- He was charged with noncompliance for national codes
So what's missing here? For the judge's argument to work, you need to make it so the defendant's confusion about national and local codes is irrelevant. That's what option C does. This statement makes it so that all national codes are part of local codes. Meaning that if you broke a national code, you definitely broke a local code because both sets of codes share that rule.
I mean, so is this the sort of question where you MUST go into the answer choices? Nothing was clicking as i was reading the stimulus. I was just confused as to why noncompliance with local was ok, but not with national.
I was able to anticipate this answer.
It's not that noncompliance is ok. Noncompliance is bad at both levels. The defendant wants the judge to be lenient with the penalty. The judge is saying at the local level, you might have a reasonable argument. But since it was noncompliance at the national level, you have no argument. The only way that could be the case is if maybe the local level has some rules that the national level doesn't.
If local has rules that national doesn't, then you could reasonably claim confusion. But if the national rules are a subset of the local rules, then there's no way to be confused because there are no national rules that aren't also local rules.
Ok, so the judge stating that the defendant might have a reasonable argument if he had not complied with the local regulations isn't the same thing as him saying noncompliance at the local level is acceptable?
Honestly though, how did you even think about the relative strictness of national versus local laws?
Correct. Noncompliance is never acceptable. It would just be understandable had the confusion been because of local codes that don't exist at the national level.
In general, anytime a question presents two groups dealing with similar things, your mind should be on alert for how the groups are different from each other. Is A a subset of B, meaning all A's are B's but maybe not all B's are A's? Does A have some kind of advantage/disadvantage that distinguishes it from B? Is A a control group and B an experimental group or vice versa?
For this question specifically, (not to lean on outside knowledge and assumptions) this tends to be how it is in the US because of states rights vs. federal control. National codes are a loose framework, but not overly restrictive because #statesrights. Since the states have the power, they can take the base national rules and make them more restrictive if they want.
Eh....
So after reading the stimulus, I should be speculating what is different about national laws that would make it so that noncompliance with said laws are unacceptable while possibly acceptable with local laws. If national laws were a subset of local laws, and the defendant admitted noncompliance with these national codes, then it's unacceptable because of the...overlap between the two groups?
But how does all that even translate to C?
If it were the other way around, aka local laws were a subset of national, then the opposite conclusion could be drawn, wouldn't it?
Are there any questions that contain the same concept? I swear I have never seen this type of question before that required this specific thought process. Your other stuff about control group versus experimental and advantages/disadvantages that can account for differences between otherwise similar looking groups is familiar enough, but the first is just wtf to me.
No, not possibly acceptable. Understandable. Noncompliance is unacceptable fullstop. But depending on the circumstance, you could explain where the confusion came from. everything else you said is spot on.
This is a principle question, meaning you need to choose the piece that makes the reasoning fall into place. Adding option C to what the Judge already said completes the reasoning. The defendant is claiming confusion, but if C is true, then there was no justifiable confusion on the defendants part.
Unfortunately, I'm not subscribed to 7Sage currently, so I can't immediately point to any specific questions. But if you revisit the CC lessons for conditional logic while thinking about this question, it might click?
I’ve been mulling it over and I just don’t think the whole subset thing is intuitive at all, nor is it something I would be able to come up with even if the test were untimed.
Could you give me a real life example that doesn’t require the whole subset concept?
Think of any club or organaztion that has national recognition (fraternities/sororities, Girl Scouts, etc.)
There are national standards the chapter must follow in order to keep in good standing. Depending on where the chapter is located, there are also school rules a chapter must follow in order to continue running at the school. At any given time, you have 2 sets of rules to contend with
Yeah...I think I'm going to just accept I will miss this question if anything like this shows up again. I swear I have never seen this sort of question before or if I did, I didn't realize it. How about this? It doesn't matter whether you are at the local or national level or how strict each set of rules is, you just cannot walk around stark naked. If you did, you'd be violating rules at both the national and local level, so there cannot be a misunderstanding there because being naked in public is just not allowed due to decency laws against public exposure that exist at both levels.
Exactly! A situation where there are two sets of rules that may have some differences, but this is an area where they both overlap without question
The correct answer is what is required for national laws is also required for state laws...if we apply my example, is that like saying wearing clothing in public is required at both levels?
Btw, if you're not on 7sage, how are you studying? Your username seems familiar...
I feel like I've responded to some of your questions before, so that's probably why my username seems familiar.
Since I paid for prep plus, I just drill on lawhub with tests that I've already done or spoiled by using Khan Academy and check this forum or powerscore if there's something I really don't understand. I might resubscribe in like a month though to foolproof logic games.
I'm in need of a good study partner who wants a 170+ and is willing to dig deep into gnarly questions so if any of that sounds even remotely interesting to you, maybe we could meet up once for like half an hour and see how it goes.
I sent you a PM