LSAT 139 – Section 4 – Question 03

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Type Tags Answer
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Curve Question
Difficulty
Psg/Game/S
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Explanation
PT139 S4 Q03
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Part v. Whole +PvW
A
1%
157
B
95%
165
C
1%
151
D
1%
154
E
1%
154
133
140
147
+Easier 148.326 +SubsectionMedium


Video of JY doing this

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Letter to the editor: You have asserted that philanthropists want to make the nonprofit sector as efficient as private business in this country. Philanthropists want no such thing, of course. Why would anyone want to make nonprofits as inefficient as Byworks Corporation, which has posted huge losses for years?

Summarize Argument: Counter-Position
The author denies the claim that philanthropists want to make nonprofits as efficient as businesses, offering an example of an inefficient business that no one would want to emulate.

Identify and Describe Flaw
The argument is flawed because it presumes that the Byworks Corporation is representative of the country’s private sector. The position that the author responds to claimed that philanthropists want to be as efficient as private businesses in general. If other businesses are more efficient than the Byworks Corporation—and we’re given no reason to believe this isn’t the case—then the argument fails.

A
draws a conclusion about what ought to be the case from premises that are entirely about what is the case
This is descriptively inaccurate. The author makes a claim as to what the motivations of philanthropists are, not what they should or shouldn’t do.
B
takes the condition of one member of a category to be representative of the category in general
This describes how the argument presumes that other businesses are as inefficient as the Byworks Corporation. It’s entirely possible that philanthropists seek to emulate other, more efficient businesses.
C
rejects a claim by attacking the proponent of the claim rather than addressing the claim itself
This is descriptively inaccurate. The author responds to the other conclusion by citing an example of an inefficient business, not by attacking the arguer as a person.
D
concludes that a claim must be false because of the mere absence of evidence in its favor
This is descriptively inaccurate. The argument never addresses whether the opposing claim does or does not have evidence; it just provides one example of a business which it presumes is representative of the entire private sector.
E
concludes that a phenomenon will have a certain property merely because the phenomenon’s cause has that property
This is descriptively inaccurate. The argument doesn’t presume that an effect has the same trait as its cause; it presumes that one business is representative of businesses in general.

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