Self-study
Activist: Conclusion President Zagel should resign, because Support she is unable to govern effectively given the widespread belief that she rigged the election.
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Argument Summary And Rule Anticipation
At the heart of this question are two warring premises:
Activist: Zagel is unable to govern effectively.
Zagel: My resignation would make the world think our political system is unstable, which is unacceptable.
We’re choosing the lesser of two evils – if she resigns the world will think we’re unstable, and if she doesn’t resign she’ll be ineffective.
Remember now that the LSAT is a test about arguments – the connections between premises and conclusions. Our job is never to question the truth of the premises themselves, but rather to examine the link between them and the conclusion.
As it stands, then, Zagel has the upper hand – her premise includes the idea that [the world thinking our political system is unstable] would be unacceptable.
To overcome Zagel’s advantage, our Activist needs a rule that says “Governing ineffectively would be even unacceptable…er.” Here's our clean Premise → Conclusion anticipation:
If you’re comparing ineffective governance to a worldwide perception that our political system is unstable, then ineffective governance is a bigger deal.
14.
Which one of the following ███████████ ██ ██████ ████ █████ ██ ███████ ███ ██████████ ████████ ██ ███ ████ ██ █████████ ███████ █████████
a
A country whose ████████ ██████████ ███ █████████ ██ ████████████ ████████████ ████ ██████████ ██████ ███████████ ███████
Perhaps (A) is appealing because it gestures toward the idea that if Zagel resigns, the upsides from addressing alleged election rigging will cause a remedy for the political stability issue. Like “let’s go with my thing, and later on your concerns won’t be so bad.”
The wording is just a bit off in a few places, with the most notable theme being facts vs. beliefs: whereas the stimulus is concerned with perceptions of corrupt elections and political instability, (A) addresses both those concepts in fact.
b
The leader of █ ███████ ██████ ██████ ██ █████ ██ ██ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ █████████ █████████████ ██████████ ███ █████████ ██████████
The "you should resign if [blah]" bit is great, but the stimulus establishes that Zagel’s resignation would harm the country’s reputation, not improve it.
c
If a president ██ ████████ ██ █ ███████ ████ ██ ████ ███████ ████ ████████ ████ ████ ██████ ████████ ███████ ██ ███████ ████ ████ █████████ ██████ ███████
The "if [such and such] happens, you should resign" bit is great, but we have no idea how serious Zagel’s alleged scandal is compared to its predecessors.
d
If it can ██ ████████████ ██████ ████ ██ ████████████ ██████ ██ █████████ ████ ████ ████████████ ██████ ██ ███████ ████ ███████
The "if [such and such] happens, you should resign" bit is great, but we can't conclusively prove Zagel rigged the election from the Activist's premise alone. This is the common "facts vs. beliefs" distinction: just because there's widespread belief Zagel rigged the election doesn't mean it's true (or can be proven true).
e
It is more █████████ ███ █ ███████ ██ ████ █ ██████ ███ ███ ██████ ███████████ ████ ██ ██ ██ ██ ██████ ██ █████ █████████ ██ ██████ █ ██████ █████████ ███████
Here’s the rule we need. Zagel’s premise establishes [being viewed by other countries as having an unstable political system] is unacceptable. For the Activist’s argument to overcome that premise, they need a rule saying “an ineffective government would be even more unacceptable.”
That’s what we get here: “my thing is more important than your thing.”