The question stem reads: The reasoning in the board member’s argument is vulnerable to criticism on grounds that the argument… This is a Flaw question.
The board member begins by claiming that the J Foundation issued “you” this grant on the condition that the resulting work did not contain anything detrimental to the J Foundation’s reputation. In other words, meeting the conditions of the grant requires that “your” work not contain anything harmful to J Foundation’s reputation. However, the board member notes that the resulting work does not mention anything positive about the J Foundation. The board member concludes that “you” have failed to meet the conditions of the grant.
Here we have a very common flaw in the LSAT: assuming that negation and opposition are the same. The board member assumes that no positive information must mean the existence of negative information. However, positive information could also imply that the information in the work was simply neutral: the information was neither good nor bad for the J Foundation’s reputation. If the resulting work was neutral, then “you” would not violate the conditions of the grant. Let’s move to the answer choices.
Answer Choice (A) is incorrect. Whether or not the work has Intellectual value has nothing to do with the board member’s argument.
Answer Choice (B) is incorrect. The author does not confuse the necessary condition of “no harmful information” for being sufficient to issue the grant.
Correct Answer Choice (C) is what we discussed. The board member has assumed that failing to mention the laudable achievements of J Foundation amounts to harming the reputation of J Foundation.
Answer Choice (D) is something the argument fails to consider, but that is not why the argument is flawed.
Answer Choice (E) is also something that the argument does not consider, but (E) is not a problem for the argument. If you failed to satisfy the necessary condition of “no harmful information,” it would not matter how many other conditions were met. The problem is that we do not know if the work actually contained harmful information.
A
a habit that involves an addictive substance is likely to pose a greater health threat than a habit that does not involve any addictive substance
B
for most people who successfully quit smoking, smoking does not create an immediate health concern at the time they quit
C
some courses of action that exacerbate health concerns can also relieve social pressure
D
most people who succeed in quitting smoking succeed only after several attempts
E
everyone who succeeds in quitting smoking is motivated either by social pressure or by health concerns
Melvin: Although smaller client loads are desirable, reducing client loads at our agency is simply not feasible. We already find it very difficult to recruit enough qualified agents; recruiting even more agents, which would be necessary in order to reduce client loads, is out of the question.
A
Since reducing client loads would improve working conditions for agents, reducing client loads would help recruit additional qualified agents to the real estate agency.
B
Many of the real estate agency’s current clients have expressed strong support for efforts to reduce client loads.
C
Several recently conducted studies of real estate agencies have shown that small client loads are strongly correlated with high customer satisfaction ratings.
D
Hiring extra support staff for the real estate agency’s main office would have many of the same beneficial effects as reducing client loads.
E
Over the last several years, it has become increasingly challenging for the real estate agency to recruit enough qualified agents just to maintain current client loads.