Q12 - Political theorist: The vast majority

[kiwistory]

I tried to draw out a logic chain for this question, but I cannot locate the answer!

This is what I did
Single political party(A) --(most)--> Corrupt national govt(B)
plurality(C) --(some)--> (B)
(B) --(all)---> Weakness of local government (D)

The answer indicates,
(D) --(some)--> (C)

I thought (D) without being negated would stay as a necessary of (B), but it seems like the answer has turned it into a sufficient without negating it. Even if it is possible to take (D) as a sufficient, wouldn't the opposite of some be none, thus it'd be

(D) --(some)--> (B) --(almost none)--> (C)

since the relation between (C) and (B) was that of a Some, not a All, or even Most?

Did I set up the original logic chain wrong? Or is there a logic rule that I don't know about?
Thanks again guys! This is confusing me terribly : (.

[bbirdwell]

Wow. It is definitely confusing to think about it like that! With arguments that hinge on quantity words like "some, all, none, etc.," I wouldn't worry so much about making contrapositives or labeling them sufficient or necessary - it can be a terrible headache.

I suggest just writing it out as it's given.

Most 1-party countries --> corrupt

Some plurality countries --> corrupt

corrupt --> weak local govt

So what do you know about those places with weak local govt? Some of them are "plurality countries," and others are "1-party countries."

This is exactly what answer choice (B) says.

This is sort of like saying

a bunch of flour --> pancake mix
Some milk --> pancake mix

pancake mix --> breakfast

What do you know about breakfast? It's got some flour in it, and some milk.

Or, as you put it:

Most A --> B

Some C --> B

B --> D

What do you know about D? It's got some C and some A in it.

Make sense now?

[mitrakhanom1]

I got stuck between answers B and D. can somebody please explain why D is wrong?

[ohthatpatrick]

Sure thing.

(D) says that "MOST countries with weak local governments have a single political party".

Okay, so can we prove that 51% or more of weak local governments has a certain quality?

Is there any fact in the information that says "MOST countries with weak local governments are ____"?

No, so we can't prove it.

All we know about weak local governments is that
IF it's corrupt national, THEN it's weak local.

But that doesn't come close to giving us any info about what is true about MOST weak local govts.

Picture this analogy:
IF you play in the NFL, THEN you're male.

From that statement, do you know anything about MOST males?

No. Same problem with (D).

By contrast, (B) is only talking about SOME. We only need to prove that "at least one example exists" that is both a plurality of parties and a weak local government.

Well, the 2nd idea tells us that some countries with a plurality of parties exist. It tells us that these countries also have a corrupt national government. The 3rd idea tells us that everything with a corrupt national has a weak local. So we know that these countries with a plurality of parties have weak local governments.

(In general, it's very unlikely that the correct answer to any Inference question will have extreme wording, such as "all"/"none"/"most")

== other answers ==

(A) Similar to (D), there's no way this info allow to prove anything about ALL countries with weak local govts.

(A) is actually contradicted by the info provided ... as (B), the correct answer, reminds us, there are definitely at least some countries with weak local govt's that have a PLURALITY of political parties.

(C) This is trying to bait us into the tempting real-world inference of "Some A's are B's" --> "Some A's are not B's"

On LSAT, we can't do that.

Is it true or false to say that
"Some NFL players are male"?

It's true. 'Some' means 'at least one'. It does NOT tell us that 'some AREN'T'.

The only facts we're given are about corrupt governments, so we have no info that would allow us to prove that non-corrupt governments exist.

(E) There's no way to quantify whether there are more/fewer multiparty vs. single party.

This answer is trying to trap people with the logic of ...
"The info said MOST single parties vs. SOME plurality of parties. MOST > SOME."

This clearly doesn't have to be true. I could refer to "MOST senators vs. SOME women" ... do we know which is more numerous: the senators or the women? We do not.

Let me know if anything is still unclear.

[JigyasuP507]

Countries that have single political party —> CSPP
Countries with plurality of parties —> CPPP
Corrupt national governments—> CNG
Weakness of local governments—> WLG
Therefore, chains would be like :—

1. CSPP -most-> CNG —>WLG
2. CPPP<-some-> CNG —> WLG
As all CNG are WLG
From chain chain 2 it can be inferred that ,
CPPP<-some-> WLG or WLG<-some-> CPPP
Stated bY AC B!!!
Hope that’d help!!