Q22 - Consumer advocate: There is no

[ohthatpatrick]

What does the Question Stem tell us?
Necessary Assumption

Break down the Stimulus:
Conclusion: Govt is responsible for the higher price of gas.
Evidence: Govt's policies increased demand for fuel, and as a result, the price of gas has gone up.

Any prephrase?
Seems pretty reasonable. Let's play debater and think "Given that the govt's policies increased demand for fuel, and the increased demand led to a higher price for gas, how could we argue that the govt is NOT responsible for the increased cost in gas?" I guess we could say something like the demand for "fuel" vs. "gas" is a meaningful switch. Does fuel need to be gasoline? We could also say that just because demand goes up doesn't mean that price HAS to go up. Maybe the gas companies have ample supply and could manage the increased demand without increasing the price of gas.

Answer choice analysis:
A) Weak and thus loveable. If we negate it, "govt can NOT be responsible for something it indirectly caused". Well, it indirectly caused the price of gas to go up, so this answer destroys the conclusion. Keep it.

B) "Unforeseen" is a new idea that we can't match up with the argument.

C) "Cannot without" is extreme and conditional. Dangerous. The author doesn't have to assume that IN ALL CASES, more demand for gas leads to higher gas prices. The author is only saying the government is responsible for THIS increase in gas prices, so she only has to assume that the IN THIS CASE the increased demand for gas caused gas prices to increase (and she goes beyond assuming that / she states that idea).

D) "obligation to ensure". Extreme and dangerous. Also "excessive" increase in demand is out of scope.

E) "if" = conditional. Extreme and dangerous. The author is telling a story about when the government DID pursue policies that increased demand for fuel. To make that argument, there's no reason the author needs to assume anything about what happens when the government DOESN'T pursue policies that increase fuel demand.

The correct answer is A.

Takeaway/Pattern: The correct answer is simply a bridge between the Evidence (govt indirectly caused gas price to rise) and Conclusion (govt is responsible for the increased gas price). The soft language of (A) makes it a powerful objection when you negate it. Meanwhile, the last three answers had very extreme language that should be a red flag.

#officialexplanation

[chlqusghtk]

At first, I thought E could be a defender assumption, but shortly after I realized that it was a mistaken negation of the premise. If E were to be a defender assumption, what part of it should be changed? (Or, if the correct answer were a defender assumption, what would it be like?)


Thanks for your help.

[giladedelman]

Ah, okay. So a "defender assumption" is an assumption that eliminates a competing possibility. For example, if we said,

"I left work on time, therefore I'll be home on time,"

one such assumption would be, "I won't get eaten by a dragon on the way home."

Here, the argument is that because the government's policies led to increased demand for gasoline, and that demand led to increased prices, the government is responsible for the increased prices.

(A) is correct because it is necessary to assume that the government can be responsible for something it causes indirectly. If this weren't true, then the argument would fall apart.

As for (E), you're quite right that it's a mistaken negation. Another way to look at it is that we don't care about what happens when the government doesn't pursue this policy.

Off the top of my head, I don't see an easy way to change this answer to a "defender assumption."

But one such answer could be:

(F) The government is not only responsible for policies limited to the fat content of macaroni and cheese.

This seems out of scope, but really, it's eliminating a competing possibility; if the government were responsible only for mac-and-cheese policies, then it wouldn't be responsible for gasoline prices.

Does that make sense?

[gdrs1750]

I've also got a quick question for this question if anyone has time.

A states that governments can bear the responsibility for that which it indirectly causes. This seemed like a good response to me when I first read it, but then I continued because of word "can". I thought sure it can, but the argument should "there is no doubt that the government is responsible for the increased cost of gasoline." Wouldn't the right response state that the government "should" bear the cost. It seems like the argument is saying that the government ought to be responsible for the price. I chose B for this reason, I'm not sure why that's incorrect, and why A is correct.

[giladedelman]

I got all kinds of time, don't you worry.

Okay, first of all:

No, (C) is incorrect because the connection between the increased demand and increased price is explicitly stated in the argument. We don't need to assume that increased demand always causes prices to increase; it's enough to know that this is the case in this particular example.

(B) is incorrect because the stimulus gives no indication as to whether the consequences are unforeseen.

(A) is correct because we're looking for a NECESSARY assumption. Something that has to be true. If the government is to be held responsible in this case, it has to be true that the government can bear responsibility for something it causes indirectly. This assumption doesn't mean the conclusion definitely follows -- that's the job of a sufficient assumption, not a necessary one -- but we need to assume it if the argument is to have any hope.

Does that answer your questions?

[alana.canfield]

This helped me. Thanks!

[adarsh.murthy]

This is still not clear to me. C has a causal statement in its premise. As far as I understand, if A causes B, and for this premise to support the arguement, it should represent a unique pair of causal relationship exactly in that order.

That would mean, the arguement has to assume that:
B -> A is false.
not A-> not B is also false.
(not B -> not A is true)

if A = increase in consumer demand
and B = increase in fuel price

isnt C saying: notA -> notB, which the arguement has to assume; Otherwise the premise A-> B is violated

Thanks for clearing this for me!

[timmydoeslsat]

Good question adarsh.murthy.

We need to remember that the "A causes B" statement is already known in the argument. We know this from the statement, "as a result of increasing demand, the price of gasoline has risen steadily."

So, we are given the premise that the consumer's demand caused the price of gasoline to rise steadily.

Answer choice C states that consumer demand must always cause the price of gasoline to increase. Is it necessary for this argument to be valid for this to always be the case? No. We have all we need to know from the premise in the argument, that in this instance, the consumer demand increase caused gasoline price increases.

Quite frequently, the correct answer to a necessary assumption question is a gap between wording in the conclusion and the premises given.

In this case, the conclusion is that the government is responsible for the increased cost of gasoline.

It then states what the government policies have done to consumers, etc.

My first thought was that the conclusion of being "responsible" is a loaded word. It was like a dangling fruit!

[adarsh.murthy]

Thanks!

I guess the C would have been a good option for strengthening/weakening type of question; In that case it would reinforce the causality.

I saw Option A as a fruit that was hanging too low; an LSAT trap! The can is kind of ambiguous. I thought the author would say: "I dont care if govt can bear the responsibility, I am saying it is responsible."

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

That would mean, the arguement has to assume that:
B -> A is false.
not A-> not B is also false.
(not B -> not A is true)

if A = increase in consumer demand
and B = increase in fuel price

isnt C saying: notA -> notB, which the arguement has to assume; Otherwise the premise A-> B is violated

Something else... Be careful about confusing conditional logic (correlations) with causality. It looks like you've outlined first a reversal, then a negation claiming they both must be false. And then that the contrapositive must be true. But causation doesn't work that way.

For causation... if they say A caused B, you want to be think about whether it could have been the case that B caused A, or that something else caused B, or that they are both the result of a third factor. If any of those things could be the case, that'd be a pretty big weakness in the argument. Lastly, this is only true when you evaluate causation in the conclusion. If the causation is in the evidence as it is here - we just give 'em that. We always take the evidence as given and then wonder whether the conclusion they reach from that evidence makes any sense.

Nice work Timmy!

[lhermary]

I picked E, although I didn't feel entirely confident.

I marked A off immediately because it said indirectly and we have no evidence (without assuming) that it was indirect.

Please help

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Ah! But we do have evidence that the government's policies did not directly increase the cost of gasoline. The argument says that government's policies increased demand. That's not the same as increasing the cost of gasoline. Sure, indirectly the increased demand did in turn increase the cost of gasoline, but only through the intermediary of increasing demand.

Answer choice (E) relates the price of gasoline with government policies that do not increase the demand for gasoline. The relationship expressed in this answer choice negates the logic contained in the argument that when the demand increased, the price increased. But that does not require that when the demand does not increase, the price does not increase as well.

Does that answer your question?

[lugar.choi]

Are (A) "The government can bear responsibility for that which it indirectly causes" same as "the government is responsible for that which is indirectly causes"?

I crossed off (A) because "can bear responsibility" sounds like the government has the ability to accept this responsibility, instead of the government is (or should be) responsible.

For example, a poor man steals an expensive art and destroys it. He "is responsible" for his action and is sentenced to pay the owner $1 million dollars. However, he cannot bear the responsibility for his action, because he is poor and doesn't have $1 million dollars. Am I interpreting "can bear responsibility" wrong?

[wj097]

About (E), I think why people are tempted to choose it is because when it is negated, it feels like it sorta damages the argument.

Negation of (E): Even if the government pursues policies that do not increase the demand for fuel, gasoline prices tend not to remain stable.

If we take the last part "tend not to remain stable" as "may go up", then I think the argument is weakened in a way that we can get the idea that the price increase after all might not be the fault of the government. May be it just happened to be so, regardless of the government's policy.

But as I mentioned it, this is when we take "remain stable" as the same as "increase". It can still be "decrease". This is why I think (E) is wrong. Please let me know if I missed something.

Thanks.

[jm.kahn]

Can an expert explain why C is not also a necessary assumption?

The premises clearly say that increasing demand causes gasoline price raise. This is same as saying gasoline demand can't increase without gasoline price increase, which is C. I see why A is a required assumption but don't see why C is not.

premise-1: government's policies have significantly increased gasoline demand
premise-2: increasing demand causes increased gasoline prices
conclusion: government responsible for gasoline cost increase

Choice-C is simply a rephrase of premise-2. The premise in the argument is written as this: "as a result of increasing demand, the price of gasoline has risen steadily." Any help?

Answer choice C states that consumer demand must always cause the price of gasoline to increase. Is it necessary for this argument to be valid for this to always be the case? No. We have all we need to know from the premise in the argument, that in this instance, the consumer demand increase caused gasoline price increases.

I read the post above by timmydoeslsat which says that it's a premise in the argument so it's not an assumption. I don't think that is correct. Just because it's a premise isn't reason enough for something to be not a necessary assumption. Anything that argument assumes is an assumption and that includes a premise.

[zdlsat]

Thanks!

I guess the C would have been a good option for strengthening/weakening type of question; In that case it would reinforce the causality.

This is the part that I'm still confused.

I guess we can all agree that C restate or reinforce the causal relation in premise.

so for this question, a ness assumption, C can't be the answer, because this causal relation is stated in premise, which means we have to accept it as facts.

If the question is strengthen, could answers like C, reinforcing causal relation, be a correct answer or it just a premise booster?

[ohthatpatrick]

Let’s address some of the previous untouched questions.

“Can bear responsibility” is meant to be the same as “can be responsible for”. I see how you were led astray thinking it meant “has the responsibility of rectifying the situation” vs. “is to blame for the situation”.

(C) does NOT repeat the 2nd premise. The premise is a specific statement of fact about something that just happened.

I frightened Laura. As a result, she fell down the stairs.

Does that mean the same thing as “you cannot frighten someone without them falling down the stairs”? Of course not.

(C) is a much stronger, universal version of the causal connection between higher demand and higher prices. The argument only described that causal connection for one recent phenomenon.

====
I hope everybody is making use of the INCREDIBLY HELPFUL fact that you can’t go overboard on Necessary Assumption (whereas on Strengthen, there is no such thing as “too strong).

Looking out for extreme language (f.e., most, typically, tends to, primarily, all, none, etc.) is one of the easiest ways to quickly distance yourself from an answer choice.

(E) is a conditional, which is extreme, even though the consequence of “tends to” waters it down slightly.

(D) govt has “obligation” to “ensure”. Yikes.

(C) is as strong as it gets. An increase in consumer demand ALWAYS leads to increased gasoline prices.

Why does the author need to assume that’s always the case? If it’s NOT ALWAYS the case, is his argument weakened? (remember, Necessary Assumption really means “which of the following, if false, most weakens”)

Nope. We know that IN THIS CASE, increased demand led to increased prices. And the author is only concluding something about THIS CASE. We know that the causal relationship held in this case because the causal wording “as a result” was used.

(a previous poster said that timmydoeslsat was ruling out (C) because it just repeated the premise … I didn’t see him say that in the quoted excerpt … it does not repeat a premise … I’ve never seen a necessary assumption answer choice repeat a premise … that said, “assumption” is usually defined as an “unstated premise”, so you wouldn’t call a premise an assumption … naturally, the author does assume his premises are true, but I doubt LSAT would ever want us to reiterate that boring fact)

I don’t think (C) would strengthen the argument because what is the added benefit of knowing that IN OTHER CASES AS WELL increased demand led to increased prices?

Who cares? It’s a provided fact that increased demand led to increased prices in this situation. All we’re trying to assess is who’s to blame for the increased prices.

We can similarly see that (E) is over-reaching by discussing whether prices “tend to remain stable” when the govt does / doesn’t do certain things.

We’re only trying to assess the govt.’s role in the current cost of gas. This current situation MIGHT adhere to general tendencies or it might be an exception to the norm. The author doesn’t have to assume that this is a typical or atypical situation.

The author is only claiming blame for the current price of gas.

Hope this helps.

[maria487]

We have something of a chain with this question--

Government policy (A) led to increased demand (B), which led to increase in price (C). We then get the conclusion that the government is responsible for the increased price (D).

With these sort of causal chains on necessary assumption questions, which part of the chains would hooking together be necessary--out of your 3 chain premise pieces, how can I tell which connection is a necessary assumption? Is it A and D, B and D, or C and D?

I get confused because you have this long chain of information with assumption questions, but I struggle particularly with necessary assumption questions because I don't know which connection is truly necessary.

Thank you!

[ohthatpatrick]

I don't understand your symbols:
"Government policy (A) led to increased demand (B), which led to increase in price (C). We then get the conclusion that the government is responsible for the increased price (D)."

Why is increase in price = (C)
and then increased price = (D)?

Those are the same idea.

If you were looking to make a causal chain, you'd say
Govt (A) caused increased demand (B), increased demand (B) caused increased prices (C).
Thus, govt (A) caused increased prices (C).

But I'm not sure why you're trying to do anything with conditionals here. Conditional logic is not very useful on most Necessary Assumption questions.

You don't need to necessarily figure out "which connection is truly necessary". On nearly half of all Necessary Assumption questions, there's no way to predict the specific answer.

Make sure you understand that your task on Necessary Assumption is simply:
Which of the following, if false, would most weaken the argument?

How do you weaken an argument? You provide a way to accept the evidence but argue the anti-conclusion. We would hurt this argument by finding a way to argue that "the government is NOT RESPONSIBLE for the higher price of gas".

If (A) is false, then the government can't be held responsible for things it indirectly causes.

The government only indirectly caused gas prices to increase, so we can argue the anti-conclusion. The government was NOT RESPONSIBLE for the higher price of gas.

[andrewgong01]

Was it the " as a result" phrase that allowed you to conclude that the government's role was indirect? When I did this problem I circled indirect in the answer choice and wrote "scope" because the argument never said it was indirect