LSAT 133 – Section 3 – Question 26

LSAT 133 - Section 3 - Question 26

June 2011

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT133 S3 Q26
+LR
Resolve reconcile or explain +RRE
Math +Math
A
53%
166
B
8%
159
C
14%
160
D
3%
157
E
23%
162
153
163
173
 +Hardest 147.69 +SubsectionMedium

A recent poll showed that almost half of the city’s residents believe that Mayor Walker is guilty of ethics violations. Surprisingly, however, 52 percent of those surveyed judged Walker’s performance as mayor to be good or excellent, which is no lower than it was before anyone accused him of ethics violations.

"Surprising" Phenomenon
Why didn’t the percent of people who judged Walker’s performance as mayor to be good or excellent go down after he was accused of ethics violations, even though almost half surveyed believe those accusations?

Objective
The correct answer should give us a reason to think that almost half of people believing Walker violated ethics would not impact the percent who judge his performance to be good or excellent. For example, maybe the people who believe his performance to be good or excellent are the ones who don’t believe he violated ethics. Or maybe ethics violations are not a factor people care about when judging a mayor’s performance.

A
Almost all of the people who believe that Walker is guilty of ethics violations had thought, even before he was accused of those violations, that his performance as mayor was poor.
If almost all who believe he violated ethics already thought his performance was poor, their new belief about his violations wouldn’t change the percent who judge his performance good/excellent. Their opinions weren’t going from good/excellent to poor; they were already poor.
B
In the time since Walker was accused of ethics violations, there has been an increase in the percentage of city residents who judge the performance of Walker’s political opponents to be good or excellent.
If this has any effect, it makes the discrepancy harder to explain. On top of the ethics violations, people’s opinion about Walker’s opponents is now more positive. So why would opinion about Walker’s performance not become more negative?
C
About a fifth of those polled did not know that Walker had been accused of ethics violations.
We already know about half believe Walker violated ethics. The 20% who weren’t aware of the accusations could be among the people who don’t believe he violated ethics. This doesn’t add information that could explain why opinion about Walker’s performance hasn’t declined.
D
Walker is currently up for reelection, and anticorruption groups in the city have expressed support for Walker’s opponent.
This doesn’t help explain how opinion about Walker’s performance hasn’t declined. If anything, we’d expect activities from anticorruption groups to negatively affect opinion about Walker’s performance.
E
Walker has defended himself against the accusations by arguing that the alleged ethics violations were the result of honest mistakes by his staff members.
Walker’s argument in his defense doesn’t explain why opinion about his performance hasn’t declined. We don’t have any reason to think people believe his defense or that his defense would cause people to give less weight to the violations when judging his performance as mayor.

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LSAT PrepTest 133 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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