In opposing the 1970 Clean Air Act, the United States automobile industry argued that meeting the act’s standards for automobile emissions was neither economically feasible nor environmentally necessary. ████████ ███ █████████ ██████████ ████████ ██ █████ ███████ ██████████ ██ ████ ███ ████ █████████ ████████████ ██████████ ██████████ ███ ████████ ███████ ███ ██████████████ ███████ ██ ████ ███████████ ████ █████ ███████ ████████████ ██ ██████████ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ███████ ████ █████ ███ ████████████ █████ ██ ██████ █████████ ███ ███████████ ██ ███████ ██ ████ ███ ██████████ ████████ ███ ██████████ ████████████ ████████ ██████ ███ ██ ███████
This stimulus exhibits a classic argument by analogy, in this case between the past and the present. This is a common enough pattern of reasoning on the LSAT (and in the law, by the way) that you should aspire to recognize it by name when it appears. If you didn’t generate an up front anticipation along the lines of “this argument uses an analogy between past and present,” practice some questions with the analogy tag!
Here’s a very brief summary:
The automakers were dumb and wrong back in 1970, so they’re probably dumb and wrong now.
That’s all the detail you need to answer this question. Here’s a more fleshed-out summary, though:
Premise 1a: In the past, the automakers swore up and down that meeting restrictions on car emissions was 1) impossibly expensive and 2) unnecessary.
Premise 1b: The “way too expensive” part was immediately proven wrong, though, because they invented the catalytic converter and met the restrictions just fine.
Premise 2a: Now, the automakers are at it again swearing up and down that meeting these new restrictions is gonna be 1) impossibly expensive and 2) unnecessary.
Premise 2b (Assumed): That “way too expensive” part is probably gonna get proven wrong again when they invent some new technology and meet the restrictions just fine.
________
Conclusion: We shouldn’t take the automakers’ position very seriously.
We gotta rummage through a dumpster full of irrelevant nonsense to find the automaker’s current position:
[The tighter restrictions on automobile emissions featured in the new legislation] are 1) too expensive, and 2) unnecessary to curb air pollution.
With that position in hand, though, our task in Q25 is quite simple: find the answer choice that strengthens one or both of those claims. We’re looking for something like:
Restrictions on emissions are hella expensive [for some reason].
or…
We can totally curb air pollution without needing these restrictions [for some reason].
Which one of the following ████ ██████████ █████████ ███ ██████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ █████████████ ███████ █████████
The automakers’ premises ███ █████ ██ ████ ██ █ ██████████████
Contradiction is a very strong word – you need two claims that cannot possibly both be true. A contradiction isn’t just “Parties are Bill’s favorite activity, but he hasn’t been to a party in ages.” A contradiction is “Parties are Bill’s favorite activity, but parties are not Bill’s favorite activity.”
Nothing like that happens here. Some arguments do operate by showing an opponent’s premises lead to a contradiction – it’s a method of reasoning called the reductio ad absurdum, and it usually stands out a mile because true contradictions like “I am a dog and also not a dog” are so jarring.
Facts are mentioned ████ ████ ████ ███ ██████████ ███ ███████ ██ █████ ████████████
What false information are the automakers currently relying on? If (B) is right, we should be able to point it out. To underline it in the stimulus.
The automakers definitely made a claim back in the ‘60s that turned out to be false – they said meeting the 1970 restrictions wouldn’t be economically feasible, but that wasn’t true. We don’t know if that claim was based on false information, though, or any information at all – maybe the automakers were just lying.
And anyway, that was in the past. As for the automakers’ current claims, we don’t know what information, if any, those claims are based on. All we have in the stimulus are the claims themselves. And we certainly don’t know that information, if it even exists, is false.
A flaw is ███████ ███ ██ ███ █████████ ████ ██ ███ ██████████ ██ █████ █████ ███████████
For (C) to be right, the stimulus would need to feature a full argument from the automakers with premises and a conclusion. We don’t have that, though – all we have from the automakers are raw claims given without support.
A comparison is █████ ███████ ███ █████████████ ███████ ████████ ███ █ ████████ ████ ████ ██ ███ █████
This matches our anticipation perfectly – the stimulus uses an argument by analogy between past and present, saying “the automakers were wrong in the past, so they’re probably wrong now.”
Evidence is provided ████ ███ ███ █████████ ███████████ ██ ████ ████████████ ████████ ███ ███████████████ ██████████
(E) is wrong because we can’t point to anything in the stimulus that does exactly what (E) says. In other words, if (E) is right, we should be able to underline the part of the stimulus that provides evidence that directly proves the new legislation is both economically feasible and environmentally necessary.
At best, the argument by analogy implies the new legislation is economically feasible (because automakers might develop some new tech like the catalytic converter), but even that analogy is silent on the question of whether the regulations are environmentally necessary.