LSAT 156 – Section 4 – Question 19

LSAT 156 - Section 4 - Question 19

July 2020

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT156 S4 Q19
+LR
Sufficient assumption +SA
A
66%
159
B
4%
149
C
6%
149
D
19%
155
E
4%
151
125
145
164
 +Medium 147.09 +SubsectionMedium

I promised Bernie that I would answer his question. He asked me whether his project had been approved. I misunderstood and thought he had asked whether I had approved it. I said, truthfully, “I would approve it if I could, but I don’t have the authority to do so—that is up to Dorothy, and she hasn’t yet made a decision.” Thus, I fulfilled my promise to Bernie.

Summary
The author concludes that she fulfilled her promise to Bernie. Because that promise was that she would answer Bernie’s question, the conclusion can be understood as, “I answered Bernie’s question.”
The support for this conclusion is the fact that, after Bernie asked whether his project had been approved, the author responded with “I would approve it if I could, but I don’t have the authority to do—that is up to Dorothy, and she hasn’t yet made a decision.” The author actually misinterpreted Bernie’s question, but still let Bernie know that his project had not been approved yet.

Missing Connection
The conclusion is that the author “answered Bernie’s question.” But if the author responded based on a misinterpretation of the question, did she really “answer Bernie’s question”? That’s the issue in this argument. We want to establish that the author did in fact answer Bernie’s question.

A
All there is to answering a question is giving the questioner the information requested.
(A) establishes that if you give the information requested, you have answered the question. The author gave Bernie the info he requested — she told him that the project has not been approved yet. So according to (A), she answered Bernie’s question.
B
No person can be held accountable for another person’s decisions.
The argument doesn’t concern who should be held “accountable” (responsible) for a decision. What matters is whether the author answered Bernie’s question.
C
The person responsible for a decision is the one who should explain the decision.
The argument doesn’t concern who should explain a decision or who is responsible for a decision. What matters is whether the author answered Bernie’s question.
D
One need not fulfill a promise in order to do the best that could be done to fulfill it.
We want to prove that the author fulfilled her promise. Whether she tried to doesn’t matter. What matters is whether she actually fulfilled. So we want to establish that she answered Bernie’s question, not just that she tried her best to answer his question.
E
Making a promise always obliges a person to keep it.
Whether the author was obligated to keep her promise is irrelevant to whether she in fact kept her promise.

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LSAT PrepTest 156 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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