Q11 - In the recent election

[gs.abhinav]

I can't wrap my head around this one. I felt that option (C) was going too far in assuming that the environment issue gave Adler an advantage over Burke. The argument states that Adler's victory was resounding but there is no clue anywhere that the voter's were even mildly interested in a better environmental regulation?

I have a feeling that I making a fundamental reasoning mistake here but can't pin point it exactly.

[jiyoonsim]

Stem breakdown first.

Conclusion: Voters chose Adler over Burke.

Premise:
- People know Burke offered better plans for many problems.
- Burke has a long, succesful record of experience.
- Burke's environmental policy sides with the worst polluter in the nation.
- Adler offered strict environment regulation.


Now answer breakdown.

A) We don't know about their political career, nor it is the focus. The point here is the recent election and its results.

B) Again, natural resource being depleted isn't the point.

C) This we can certainly infer from the given stem. Burke offered really good plans for numerous problems we have now, and he has impeccable record with lot of relevant experienced. But people still chose someone else over him - someone who supports strict environment regulation. Pretty safe to assume this.

Think it this way:
There are two candidates - Jack and Jill - for a job opening, and two have their final interview. Jack has over 4.5 GPA, won many awards and have solid experiences, all directly related to the job. Jill did a lot of volunteer services. Jill got the job over Jack.

If this is the case, it's pretty safe to assume the interviewer placed more weight on volunteer services over work experience and academic records, even if we don't know anything about Jill's GPA or work experience.

D) On a quick look, this sounds very plausible but it is saying something irrelevant with the words used in stem. We can't infer anything about what's more important from the given stem.

E) We can't know anything about future from the given stem.


C alone doesn't look the nice answer we thought, but given that A,B,D,E are things we just can't infer from the stem, C makes the best among the given. I think sometimes you just have to pick the best among the given - and though I say this, I still struggle on this part. Haha...

[gs.abhinav]

Thanks for your help jiyoonsim.

I was half sure of option C, just wanted a second opinion. I think your advice makes most sense in this question: Eliminate the rest, keep the best Also the analogy makes sense. I rest my case.

Cheers
Abhi

[slimz89]

I just don't see how you can come to infer answer choice C
1) all it said about Burke is that he had effective strategies for mostof the country's problems. What does that include? Who knows? Maybe it includes every insignificant problem that if added together equal at least 51% of the problems of the country.
2) how do we know what the voters perspective on the environmental policy. Maybe they like Adler because of his good looks?
Answer choice C to me still looks like a could be true at most and not a must be true that's preceded by a logical chain of premises.

Please help!!

[WaltGrace1983]

I just don't see how you can come to infer answer choice C
1) all it said about Burke is that he had effective strategies for most.of the country's problems. What does that include? Who knows? Maybe it includes every insignificant problem that if added together equal at least 51% of the problems of the country.
2) how do we know what the voters perspective on the environmental policy. Maybe they like Adler because of his good looks?
Answer choice C to me still looks like a could be true at most and not a must be true that's preceded by a logical chin of premises.

Please help!!

I hope an instructor steps in on this. I think that this isn't the point of strongly supported questions. It doesn't HAVE TO BE true ABSOLUTELY 100% necessarily. We are looking for what is "most strongly supported." It is kind of like a strengthen/weaken question. They don't have to make or break the argument, they just give it a little bit of a push in one direction so to speak.

I do agree with you. This isn't a perfect answer choice but that doesn't mean its a wrong answer choice. Look at it this way...every answer could be true. You can spin (A), (B), (D), and (E) all to look as correct as (C) is. What is the difference between (C) and the rest of them then? The difference is that we can make a strong case for (C) ONLY FROM WHAT IS GIVEN IN THE STIMULUS.

(A) Adler is just now proposing a policy of "strict environmental regulation." We have no idea what he did in the past. It could be that Adler hated the environment before. He could have drove a diesel engine that gets 6mpg and he could have left the lights on all day and the water running in the previous campaign. Maybe now he just turned over a new leaf.

(B) Not exactly. Maybe the natural resources have not been depleted and voters are just starting to care about these resources BEFORE they actually DO rapidly deplete. The voters could have chose Adler because of other reasons.

(C) Yes! This is correct. I was assuming that the answer would say something about how the environment was a deciding factor in the election. However, I would be over-inferring it. Why is this? Because the LSAT is trying to get you to assert a causal relationship between Adler's environmental policy and his winning the election. It could be that these are just correlated. The policy may not have been a DECIDING factor, but it seems like - especially out of all of the other choices - that the environment was a factor.

(D) This answer choice is probably trying to get you to associate "offering effective strategies for dealing with a country's problems" with Adler and "having a long record of succesful government service" with Burke. This may be the case that both of these are true but we especially don't know the former. We don't know if Adler offers effective strategies. We don't know that the country has ANY problems. Maybe this country induces a state of bliss in which no problems occur. All we know is that Adler chose a certain stance of strict environmental regulation. THAT'S IT. Don't over-infer!

(E) Eh. We know that Burke had 2 things going for him (more effective strategies and long public record) and we know that Adler had one thing going for him (proposed a strict environmental regulation). However, we also don't know if these things are necessarily good! Maybe it is good to be fresh in govt.? Maybe effective strategies are not = to "best." Yes, these are stretches but WHO KNOWS?! All we know is what is in front of us. All we know is that Burke had these 2 things and Adler had this 1 thing. How are we supposed to know if Burke would have served the country better though? Maybe Burke was a lunatic and these two things that voters took notice of were the ONLY things that he didn't suck at. Maybe he was a terrible leader. Maybe he was a bad public speaker. Maybe all of the rest of his policies ensured that everyone would die poor and hungry (oops, sorry Burke!). We have no idea. We cannot get (E) from what is given.

[maryadkins]

Great explanation, jiyoonsim! Thanks for it.

To reiterate, yes, on most strongly supported questions, your task is to find the BEST answer of the 5. It may not be perfect. Answer choice (C) is not 100% provable here, as you guys smartly note. But it's without question the MOST supportable for the reasons described below by jiyoonsim and rephrased by WaltGrace1983.

I do agree with you. This isn't a perfect answer choice but that doesn't mean its a wrong answer choice. Look at it this way...every answer could be true. You can spin (A), (B), (D), and (E) all to look as correct as (C) is. What is the difference between (C) and the rest of them then? The difference is that we can make a strong case for (C) ONLY FROM WHAT IS GIVEN IN THE STIMULUS.

Exactly!