Q22 - A tax preparation company automatically adds the follo

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Sufficient Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Purpose of disclaimer → Provide legal protection
Illegal suggestion → No legal protection

Conclusion: No Purpose

Answer Anticipation:
Full disclosure - I love this question. I think you can learn a lot from it.

The argument states that legal protection is the only reason to have a disclaimer. It then states that an e-mail with an illegal suggestion renders the disclaimer as not providing protection. Since the disclaimer in that case doesn't provide protection, and that's the only purpose of a disclaimer, we can conclude that, under that circumstance, the disclaimer serves no purpose. That gets us halfway to the conclusion, but we need to know that an e-mail without illegal suggestions also doesn't benefit from a disclaimer.

I don't know the specific way that the answer will be phrased, but it will tell me that in the situations not covered by the "Illegal suggestion" conditional, the disclaimer also doesn't provide legal protections. When all situations lead to no legal protection, it's valid to conclude the disclaimer serves no purpose.

Correct answer:
(A)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) Boom. I'd be nervous about how much I like answer choice (A) on a hard question, but this covers all the bases. The argument already stated a disclaimer on an e-mail with an illegal suggestion serves no purpose. This answer covers the other case (an e-mail without an illegal suggestion), stating that the company won't need legal protection. If the company doesn't need legal protection, then they won't gain legal protection with a disclaimer, thus rendering it purposeless.

(B) Out of scope. Penalties aren't relevant in this case about legal protection. Additionally, this answer choice covers the situation in which we already know the disclaimer serves no purpose, so the gap still exists.

(C) Out of scope. Recipients paying attention to the disclaimer is never mentioned as being relevant to the legal protection it provides.

(D) Out of scope. The argument doesn't require the recipient to follow through on any illegal advice received.

(E) Out of scope. Similar to (D), the argument doesn't require the recipient to follow advice.

Takeaway/Pattern:
Redo this question. Many times. There's a lot packed into it on conditional logic, alternative situations/explanations, implicit premises, and Sufficient Assumption questions.

#officialexplanation

[emil.brignola]

I am having a real tough time with this one can anyone help me out?

I see the conclusion is the last sentence: So the disclaimer serves no purpose.

and the evidence are the the two sentences before that.
I was trying to use a logic sentence to help me out but couldnt figure it out, and would that be the best way to go about this problem?

[harleywferguson]

Here is what the argument is saying:
Company includes disclaimer->only purpose could serve is for legal protection.
BUT if email elsewhere suggests client do something illegal-> disclaimer offers no legal protection.
So from that ^they get the conclusion: the disclaimer serves no purpose....

Ok....But what if the email doesn't suggest that the client do something illegal and the client does something illegal? Then the disclaimer would offer legal protection. So the disclaimer serves a purpose clearly. UNLESS....the company is not subject to legal action if they don't suggest illegal actions; which is exactly what A says.

Essentially the argument that the disclaimer is useless makes no sense unless we assume the disclaimer is not needed as long as the company doesn't suggest committing illegal acts. And if they do suggest it then the disclaimer offers no protection anyways so it does serve no purpose.

[maryadkins]

Thanks for the explanation! Exactly right.

To put the same thing a slightly different way, we're told that the disclaimer is useless. Why? Because it only protects the company, and if the company gives illegal advice, it doesn't work.

But what if the company DOESN'T give illegal advice? Maybe it still needs protection, anyway! And maybe the disclaimer works in that case!

(A) gets rid of this possibility by saying that this never happens. (A) states that the only time the company would ever need legal protection is when it's given illegal advice. And the premise tells us the protection won't apply then. So the conclusion works.

To use conditional logic for those of you who find that helpful:

If not illegal --> does not need protection

Contrapositive: If needs protection --> illegal

As for the others:

(B) - penalties?

(C), (D) and (E): We're not worried about what effect the advice has. We're concerned only with whether the disclaimer is useless or not, as based on the premise of what kind of protection it offers the company, when.

[seychelles1718]

Is it wrong if my pre-phrase was: "the email elsewhere does suggest that the client to something illegal." ?

Suggest something illegal --> disclaimer offers no legal protection --> no purpose is served
therefore, this chain justifies the conclusion that the disclaimer serves no purpose.

[ohthatpatrick]

Nope, that was my prephrase too.

I was saying, "I just need to know that the email suggests something illegal". That prephrase helps us "find" the correct answer, even if it initially seems written in an impossibly weird way.

[syp]

Hi, for the instructors - what questions are similar to this one? I would like to practice this type of SA question more. Thank you!

[ohthatpatrick]

There isn't one I know of that has this special form: i.e., where the correct answer works in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kinda way.

If you do Sufficient Assumption questions on the most modern tests, you will find other examples of correct answers that are more challenging to get.

It seems to be a trend to resist giving us an answer that looks perfectly like the missing idea or link we could solve for. Instead they come up with some correct answer that allows you to infer the missing idea you were looking for.

Here's an example from PT73 that's a bit weird
https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/foru ... t9188.html

Here's a spicy one from PT62
https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/foru ... t3873.html

[AyakiK696]

Hi, my prephrase was also "the email elsewhere does suggest that the client to something illegal" and I was hopelessly confused when I couldn't find this, but I guess I have to make my thought-process more flexible.

So, is A the correct answer because it gives us a condition that's sufficient to fulfill the conditional...? So, would anything technically work, as long as it ended with a "then the company does not need legal protection"? I'm used to finding either my prephrase or the contrapositive, so I was taken by surprise that this was the right answer choice, and I just want to make sure I can spot this pattern in future Q's. I understand why A is right now, looking at the argument from a logical point of view, but was just wondering if there's also a more math-y way to explain it. Thank you!

[ohthatpatrick]

Your prephrase was my prephrase was everyone's prephrase (who knows how to do Suff Assump).

So we're all in the same boat, and looking for "suggest something illegal" gets us down to (A) and (B).

Since we're missing that key idea, the fact that (A) is set up to deliver that idea
(A) xyz ----> email suggests something illegal

while (B) puts that missing idea on the left side
(B) email suggests something illegal -----> xyz

Just from that, you'd have to pick (A).

The way to reframe you're thinking on modern SA vs. classic SA is this, I think:
- continue to predict the perfect answer, i.e. the missing link/idea
but
- remind yourself that ANY answer that lets you derive the conclusion is correct. Have a more flexible spirit of, "If I took this answer choice and combined it with any of the facts I was given in the evidence, can I derive anything?"

The math-y explanation of (A) is that every fact is either true or untrue.

Either a company needs legal protection or it doesn't need legal protection:
IF NEEDS LP -> email suggests illegal -> disclaimer offers no LP -> disclaimer serves no purpose
IF DOESN'T NEED LP -> disclaimers couldn't serve any purpose

The first contingency uses the rule from (A). The second one uses the rule from the "The only purpose" rules in the evidence.

[MeganL677]

My two cents..

[PT39S2Q21] is exactly like this one, by adding another conditional.