Q2 - Spokesperson: Contrary to what some have claimed, our g

[ohthatpatrick]

Question Type:
Necessary Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Conclusion: Clean City campaign has been rousing success.
Evidence: We have less trash on the streets now than we did when the campaign began.

Answer Anticipation:
This is a very common archetype for an LSAT argument:
A policy / campaign was put into effect. Then something changed.
The author attributes the change to the policy/campaign.

Any time LSAT authors have a causal conclusion, we have a two-pronged attack:
1. Is there any OTHER WAY to explain the change? (the premise)
2. Is the AUTHOR'S WAY a plausible explanation?

We could anticipate correct answers here that RULE OUT other ways to explain why trash is lower these days, or answers that establish a minimum that would need to be true for the author's story to be plausible.

Correct Answer:
A

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Yes! If we negate this, it badly weakens. If trash HAS been declining just as fast (or faster) with or without the campaign, then it doesn't look like the campaign had any special effect.

(B) We don't need to assume anything about whether campaign skeptics are / aren't aware of anything.

(C) Extreme: "ANY other campaign in the past"? This doesn't need to be the #1 campaign ever.

(D) It would be a classic ad hom flaw if we thought that receiving funding invalidated the legitimacy of the spokesperson's claims.

(E) Specific "declined STEADILY". Why does it need to be steadily? Couldn't it have started off slowly and picked up momentum?

Takeaway/Pattern: The correct answer, when negated, implies that SOMETHING ELSE must be the cause of the trash reduction, because the effect has been transpiring for long before the campaign came around. We often refer to this type of Weaken idea as "No Cause, yet Effect".

#officialexplanation

[LsatCrusher822]

Is it just me or was this question confusing? At first I was expecting to see an answer that would link the term "success" and the amount of trashing being "significantly lower." I can see how A eliminates a potential objection to the conclusion, but does it really matter what the rate of decline was before the campaign? The evidence only talks about the amount of trash being lower... I thought that would be enough to say that the campaign was a success?

[fmuirhea]

This is a causal argument relying on an observed correlation: a campaign was enacted to clean the city's streets, and the amount of trash decreased. Are we sure this decrease is a direct result of the campaign? What if, before the campaign, intrepid citizens had been cleaning up the streets at a steady pace? The campaign gets going, they perhaps don't notice/care, they continue cleaning up the streets, and ultimately the amount of trash is reduced with no thanks to the campaign. Thus, as you said, this assumption rules out a potential objection (specifically, another cause) to the conclusion.

[arnreed]

Looking for commentary on my thought process...

I got down to Choice (A) and Choice (E), but chose (E). Upon reflection, I thought about the problem like so:

When you negate choice (E), you get "The amount of trash on the city's street has not declined steadily throughout the course of the campaign." When this statement is linked with the premise and the conclusion, you get: "The amount of trash on the city's streets today is significantly lower than when the campaign began. The amount of trash on the city's streets has not declined steadily throughout the course of the campaign. Contrary to what some have claimed, our group's "Clean City" campaign has been a rousing success."

The issue with this statement is that when the assumption is negated, the sentence still could make sense (when negating a necessary assumption, the argument is supposed to fall apart). Couldn't it be possible that the amount of trash on the city's streets hasn't declined steadily throughout the campaign, but there is still less trash in the streets than there was before the campaign started? Perhaps the campaign went on for a span of 10 days, but a ton of trash was removed in the first 2 days. This is not a "steady" decline, but it could still mean that the amount of trash in the streets is significantly lower than when the campaign began.

When you negate choice (A), you get "The amount of trash on the city's streets was declining at the same rate or faster before the campaign began than it did during the campaign." If this assumption would be true, the effect of the campaign would be null, and we could not conclude that the campaign was a "rousing success." This negated assumption destroys the argument, therefore the assumption is necessary and choice (A) is the answer.

[maryadkins]

Nice job! Yes.

[GolddiggerF208]

As to (A) - what confuses me is even if the rate is faster during the campaign, is this necessary for the low amount of trash at the end of the campaign? Suppose the rate is below the average before the campaign but the total amount decreases, there could be a lower amount of trash than that before the campaign. I know this is out because it requires extra assumptions beyond the stimulus. This question lights on me that the necessary assumption can be something without which the argument will be weakened but not completely negated.