LSAT 143 – Section 1 – Question 10

LSAT 143 - Section 1 - Question 10

June 2015

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT143 S1 Q10
+LR
Strengthen +Streng
Rule-Application +RuleApp
Net Effect +NetEff
Link Assumption +LinkA
A
1%
157
B
3%
158
C
0%
152
D
1%
155
E
94%
164
124
135
145
 +Easier 148.401 +SubsectionMedium

Copyright statutes benefit society by providing incentive to produce original works, so some kind of copyright statute is ultimately justified. But these statutes also represent a significant cost to society because they create protected monopolies. In many countries, copyright statutes grant copyright protection for the life of the author plus several decades. This is too long, since the societal benefit from the additional years of copyright is more than offset by the societal cost.

Summarize Argument
The author concludes that copyright protection for the life of the author plus several decades is too long. This is because the societal benefit from the additional years of copyright is more than offset by the societal cost of creating monopolies in the copyrighted works. In other words, the societal cost of the additional years of protection outweighs the societal benefit.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that if the societal cost of additional years of copyright protection outweighs the societal benefit, this is something that makes those additional years of protection unjustified. The author also assumes that there aren’t non-societal benefits that could help justify the costs of additional years of copyright protection.

A
A statute should be written in a way that eliminates any appearance of its being inconsistent in its aims.
The argument’s reasoning has nothing to do with an inconsistency in copyright statutes. There’s nothing contradictory within the statutes. They have benefits, and they also have costs. That’s not a contradiction.
B
A statute should be repealed if the conditions that originally justified enacting the statute no longer hold true.
The author never suggests that the original justification has changed. The argument is simply based on an assessment of costs and benefits, and the author doesn’t say that those costs/benefits have changed.
C
A statute that is justified in one country is justified in every country.
The author never presents a country in which copyright statutes are justified. He is simply criticizing certain countries’ copyright statutes.
D
A statute should not limit rights unless it can be shown that it thereby enhances other rights.
The reasoning isn’t that copyright statutes are unjustified because they don’t enhance other rights. The reasoning is based on weighing costs/benefits. Copyright statutes may enhance the rights of the owner, so (D) wouldn’t help show some statutes are unjustified.
E
If a statute is to be justified by its benefit to society, it should be designed so that its societal benefit always exceeds its societal cost.
(E) connects the premise, which shows that the costs outweigh the benefits, to the judgment that copyright protections for life plus several decades are too long, or in other words, unjustified.

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LSAT PrepTest 143 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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