Q10 - Columnist: Some people argue that

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

This is rare question indeed! It's in the Inference Family, and has the same relationship to Must be False that Most Supported questions have to Must be True. This question asks for what is Most Likely False.

The argument reasons by comparison. It says that because the government is able to select the top leadership for the military, the government can also appoint the top leadership at failing banks. This provides the most support for rejecting answer choice (D).

Incorrect Answers
(A) is out of scope. The amount of knowledge required by leaders of the military and of banks is not discussed, rather the responsibility of each is compared.
(B) is supported by the argument above.
(C) is supported by the argument above.
(E) is out of scope. Financially sound banks are not mentioned in the argument.

#officialexplanation

[sanchez.zoilac]

At first I thought this was an inference question but the word reject confused me

So am I looking for an answer choice that will go against what the passage is saying?

What other variations of this question type might I see in similar questions ?

Thanks!

[LukeM22]

I chose D because it was the "least worst", but I'm still wondering how one can actually infer D.

At no point in the stimulus was the quality of any given task or responsibility ever discussed. The columnist posits:

1) Government officials do not have to manage day-to-day operations

2) Government officials already select military officials whose responsibilities are at least equal to that of a bank manager

From this, I inferred:

1) We don't have enough information to conclude that banks should or should not do anything, because that argument was based on a since-falsified premise

2) Insofar as what government officials have to do in order to buy banks-- appointment of management-- they have a track record of doing so similarly in the military. Given this experience, a fair inference is that government officials should be able to complete the task that is appointing management of banks.

I can infer "banks can be managed"; I can't infer "banks can be well-managed". To state the obvious, we can't assume that good management is automatically entailed by the appointment of individuals. I feel this requires a leap/extra assumption that we simply can't get away with in other questions. How is D inferred?

[ohthatpatrick]

You're right, we can't infer that govt-managed banks can be well managed.

But I see this question stem not as a Inference-Must Be True but as a Inference-Most Strongly Supported. ("Reason for rejecting" sounds like "support for rejecting" not "conclusive proof we should reject". I think they'd have to say something like "the statements, if true, provide sufficient reason for rejecting" if they wanted it to be a black and white refutation.)

For the Most Supported Inference, you're allowed to pick an answer that isn't 100% provable. You're looking for the MOST supportable answer.

Since this question stem is asking us about rejecting one of these ideas, we could flip the truth value of each answer choice and just treat it like a normal Inference-Most Supported question.

Based on the statements above, which of the following is most supported?
(A) Commanding a branch does not require greater knowledge than running a bank.
(B) Politicians don't do an adequate job of appointing military officials.
(C) Politicians are capable of managing the day-to-day of a bank.
(D) It is possible for a government owned bank to be well managed.
(E) The government should take over shaky private banks.

From that vantage point, (D) looks like the most supportable answer to me.