Q2 - Benson: In order to maintain

[gregory.mortenson]

This question ate up a ton of time for me because I immediately eliminated the correct answer choice! I don't see how C is correct. In the question, Willett specifically says that there is "nothing new in this idea of restricting growth" and therefore growth shouldn't be restricted. C seemed like a really cheap answer choice by saying that maybe there is something new in the idea of restricting growth -- but Willett says that nothing has changed!

This one left a bad taste in my mouth. Are we automatically supposed to assume that what Willett said is an assumption rather than an objectively verifiable premise? Big thumbs down for this question from me

[aileenann]

Thanks for your question! First, I want to tackle the latter question. In general, anything that is explicitly written in an argument is not an assumption - it cannot be an assumption if it is explicit. However, what you can allow is that a particular premise is dubious or that a particular premise is weak because it itself relies on additional assumptions.

Here, you rightly point out that Willet says "there is nothing new in restricting growth." However, notice that (s)he says this, seemingly based on issues that were discussed ten years ago and then discussed five years ago. You may want to view this statement as a separate premise - and I understand the temptation to do so - but given the construction it is in "Since there is nothing new..." it sounds as though this "there is nothing new" is actually an intermediary conclusion that is flowing from the premises. Once you view it as an intermediary conclusion instead of a premise per se, this makes it a whole lot clearer why you can question it. Once you can question it, answer choice (C), which does indeed question it and weaken it substantially, is a fair option.

That said, it can be more helpful in such tricky situations to work from wrong to right. That is, there would have been good reasons to get rid of the other four answers. In the short version, those reasons are (and there may be others not listed below)

(A) is not too relevant to Willet's argument - it has a scope issue in that we don't care what is necessarily good - Willet uses the word "justified" which is not the same thing. Also, Willet never discusses growth on its own.

(B) is simply not true! There is no personal attack in Willet's argument.

(D) This is out of scope as well - Willet simply does not discuss quality of life.

(E) This certainly could weaken Willet's argument, but at the same time, it is not something we can deduce from the original argument and for that reason it also has a scope issue.

Please let me know if you have any follow-up questions. I can agree that this is not the most straight-forward of questions, but I do think it could have been done mostly working from wrong to right. Let me know if you have any comments or strident disagreement

[gregory.mortenson]

Great explanation, thanks. I was more angry at myself for spending so much time on the question and still getting it wrong -- the strategy of working from wrong to right definitely is useful and is very relevant for this type of question.

[griffin.811]

I think I got lucky on this one.

I understood Willett as the idea of restricting growth not new--> will not be new.

Then I thought C attacked the gap that just because the idea isnt new, doesnt mean the reasons for revisiting the idea can't be new.

[rikky.brown]

Feel free to correct me if I am off base here. The way I arrived at (c) was by looking at Willet's premises (hearing the same argument 10 years and 5 years ago) and considering the possible gaps. Willet says that the council had been "justified in not restricting growth" so it could be possible that now the current state of affairts threatens to bankrupt the city altogether - a situation drastically different from circumstances five and ten years ago. Hence, this could be a "new reason for considering restricting the growth". Willet says that he's heard the same arguments before, but he never says that the circumstances have remained the same.

[drizzlaxer]

It really doesn't make sense to me when the LSAT does things like this. They just drop ambiguous statements that could easily go either way and leave it up to us in what essentially amounts to a coin toss on how we interpret what they had in mind, a separate premise or an intermediate conclusion.

Why make us take these leaps of faith on ambiguous writing. They must proofread this stuff and realize it's a joke question only made difficult by obtuse writer language. What does that test?

[asafezrati]

I don't think it's ambiguous.

Willet says:
I heard the same arguments (Benson's) before - 5 and 10 years ago.
=>
For this reason there is nothing new in this idea.

Moreover, every time the proposal was rejected for good reasons.

Therefore I oppose the proposal.


So yeah, he heard the same arguments and then declared there is nothing new. That Benson using the same argument from 5/10 years ago doesn't mean that there is nothing else in this issue. Perhaps there is some new issue besides Benson's argument.

[redskateboard]

I don't think it's ambiguous.

Willet says:
I heard the same arguments (Benson's) before - 5 and 10 years ago.
=>
For this reason there is nothing new in this idea.

Moreover, every time the proposal was rejected for good reasons.

Therefore I oppose the proposal.


So yeah, he heard the same arguments and then declared there is nothing new. That Benson using the same argument from 5/10 years ago doesn't mean that there is nothing else in this issue. Perhaps there is some new issue besides Benson's argument.

How is it not ambiguous? To me it seems like "there is nothing new in this idea" could just as well be a new premise. In fact, it seems like a better interpretation.

P1. 5 and 10 years ago the city council was justified in not restricting growth.
P2. There is nothing new in this idea.
Conclusion: Oppose the regulations

[XiangL836]

But by saying "I had heard such arguments ten years ago", doesn't Willet explicitly express that there was nothing new in the argument, which includes the reasons and the conclusion? Or should that premise be taken as "such" arguments are not necessarily the same ones? Even though "Since there's nothing new in the idea" is an intermediary conclusion and thus could be attacked, I still think it has sufficient premise to draw this conclusion.

[harutmargaryan]

I got this question wrong initially. I picked E instead of C. Although I can argue otherwise why E is better than C, I'll give my take on why I think C can make sense.

One of the two premises (I don't think this is an intermediary conclusion since there is nothing supporting this) says "since there is nothing new in this idea of restricting growth" I think this is saying the idea has nothing new itself from 5-10 years ago, apart from the circumstances around it. So in C new reasons for restricting growth means the circumstances, rather than the idea of restricting growth, has changed.

I think why E does not work is because one of the premises explicitly says that the city counsel was justified in deciding so. Meaning even if they were poorly qualified, they were still justified in the decision itself.

[ohthatpatrick]

You're on point, there.

I would push back against the idea that "there's no support for the SINCE claim".

If we asked
"Why should we believe that there is nothing new in this idea of restricting growth?"
we could point to
"Because, I heard such arguments 10 yrs ago and 5 yrs ago"

I'm not adamant about calling this a subsidiary conclusion, because as you said there might be nothing new about the idea but there might be something new about the underlying circumstances.

But I can see why some people are hearing it that way. It does sound like Willett could be concluding there's nothing new in this idea on the basis of having heard similar arguments multiple times in the past.