Q23 - Defendants who can afford

[jas770]

1. I'm a bit confused as to why "D" is the correct answer...can anyone help? I had put the conclusion in bold text.

2. Also, is this an inference question?

Here is the question:

A) [IRRELEVANT]

B) [I would keep this as a contender]
C) [weaken]
D) [correct?]
E) [scope]

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

Great Question!

I think the best way to think about this one is to see it from the test-writer's perspective. Think of the evidence as an observed phenomenon. And the conclusion as an explanation for why the observation occurred. That makes the first sentence the conclusion and the second sentence the evidence.

Let me put this into a simpler analogy. Let's suppose 7 out of 10 shoppers prefer Northwood's brand maple syrup. And from this fact, the argument concludes that Northwood's brand maple syrup must be tops for taste.

The fact that 7 out of 10 shoppers prefer Northwood's brand is the observed phenomenon, and the claim that Northwood's brand is tops for taste would be the explanation.

To weaken an argument like this we would provide an alternative explanation, like Northwood's brand is the cheapest maple syrup available, so maybe people prefer it for it's low cost. To strengthen an argument like this we would eliminate a competing explanation, like low cost by saying that Northwood's brand is very expensive, thereby making it more likely that their explanation is correct.

In this example the explanation is that it's the expensive private defense attorneys that get these criminals off the hook. The observed phenomenon is the lower conviction rate for people accused of committing lucrative crimes.

This question asks us to strengthen the argument, so we're seeking an answer choice that eliminates a competing explanation.

(A) is irrelevant because it doesn't tell us about why people are not getting convicted.
(B) weakens the argument by providing an alternative explanation. It's not the expensive private defense attorney, but rather the incompetent prosecutor.
(C) is irrelevant. The number of criminals in each category is not important, but rather the conviction rate for each.
(D) strengthens the argument by eliminating a competing explanation - that it's not the defense attorneys but rather that these people actually didn't commit the crime.
(E) is irrelevant. The distinction is between street crimes and lucrative crimes, and not violent vs. nonviolent crimes.

I hope this helps clear things up! Let me know if you still need some help with it. I had to delete the text of the official question. We can't post them on the forum for copyright issues...

Thanks!

[monygg85]

Can someone help me out with eliminating answer choice C? I dont get how that doesn't strengthen the argument.

[WaltGrace1983]

Can someone help me out with eliminating answer choice C? I dont get how that doesn't strengthen the argument.

Absolutely. (C) is definitely a tempting answer because it seems to (it actually doesn't but I'll explain why in a second) strengthen the idea that, yea, the "lucrative criminals" are more successful. There are two things to say about this line of thinking:

(1) The number of convictions doesn't actually tell us anything about success rate. Now I know that "rate" wasn't really a part of the stimulus but I think we can all agree that - especially in this case - "success" is more a measurement of % rather than #. Imagine that there are 100 street criminals and 5 "lucrative" criminals. The 77/100 street criminals are convicted while 0/5 of the "lucrative" criminals are convicted. Is it reasonable to say that the street criminals are more successful? Absolutely not. Thus, the number of convictions doesn't = success.

Now what if (C) had said, "The percentage of criminals convicted of street crimes is far greater than the percentage of criminals convicted of embezzlement." That's got to be right...right? No. Why? Because of (2)...

(2) Our task is NOT to strengthen that the more "lucrative" criminals were more successful, it was to strengthen the idea of why the "lucrative" criminals were more successful. According to the stimulus, why are the "lucrative" criminals more successful? Because they have $$$ to afford those expensive lawyers of course!

(C) simply doesn't give us what we need. While (C) seems to strengthen the idea that the lucrative criminals were more successful, (C) tells us NOTHING about WHY they were more successful.

Hope that helps.

[WaltGrace1983]

Matt, I *deep breath* disagree with you actually. Perhaps I am misunderstanding you or perhaps my understanding is not perfect. I have a few questions. I'd like to nitpick here if you don't mind.

(A) is irrelevant because it doesn't tell us about why people are not getting convicted.

I actually think (A) is a serious weakener. If the conclusion of the argument is that "lucrative criminals are more successful BECAUSE of the expensive lawyers" but we find out that there are "many" street criminals that can actually afford the lawyers, this would seem to destabilize this conclusion. Now I know "many" doesn't do too much (especially for strengthen questions) but I don't know if I would deem this irrelevant. Do you agree?

(B) weakens the argument by providing an alternative explanation. It's not the expensive private defense attorney, but rather the incompetent prosecutor.

My problem is that, while the conclusion categorizes crimes as "lucrative" and "street crimes," we don't really know where "robbery and simple assault" fit in. Am I right to believe that (B) is actually wholly irrelevant because - while we might think that robbery/simple assault are street crimes - this assumption might be unwarranted. Otherwise, I agree with you completely.

This is the same reasoning that I eliminated (E) with.

Thanks! I know that categorizing wrong answers can be a bit distracting (pointless?), I am just trying to most fully understand these questions.

[veengeecomm]

Working on this question I wonder if the fact that the prosecutors are stronger on street crimes and less strong on embezzlement (for e.g.) and the attorneys hired for embezzlement are specialized with this type of case it would lead to less convictions and thus strengthen the AC B. Help! Why is the percentage of defendants that actually committed the crimes the strengthener? I get that in an ideal world innocent people are acquitted and guilty are convicted, but RL doesn't work that way. Does real innocence have a great variance on conviction rate? Maybe I'm just too skeptical?

I tossed D as irrelevant. B worked in my mind due to the specialization that exists in hiring a specific lawyer to defend against a specific crime vs a pd who is not as specialized or a prosecutor who potentially doesn't know all the ins and outs of that specific portion of the law? Am I way off here? If a prosecutor is stronger at prosecuting one case vs another they'll probably get more convictions at the one they are stronger at. And vise versa.

Gack! Mired in LSAT logic!

[ohthatpatrick]

Yeah, the problem with how you're interpreting (B) is you're adding that speculative (though plausible) idea that PRIVATE defense is better equipped to defend complex financial cases than PUBLIC defense.

That's nowhere on the page.

What IS more on the page is that prosecutors are worse at getting convictions for complex financial cases than for street crimes.

Remember, it's "innocent until proven guilty". You don't have to make a speculative leap to "awesome private defense attorneys" to make sense of (B). It's the prosecutor's job to prove guilt. If the evidence of a street crime is simply more concrete and available (bloody gloves, eyewitnesses, victim's testimony) than that for financial crime (spotty paper trail), then THAT explains why convictions are less common for lucrative (financial) crimes.

So, as Matt was saying earlier, this is actually how the correct answer to Weaken would be written: it would provide an alternative explanation for why lucrative crimes less often result in convictions.

For (D), your real life skepticism is somewhat appropriate. Guilt vs. innocence is certainly not enough to predict a verdict in advance.

But it's totally conservative common sense to think that a guilty defendant would usually have more incriminating, convincing evidence against him than an innocent defendant would.

Why would an innocent defendant have ANY evidence against him, unless it's circumstantial, flimsy stuff, or unless the person has been framed?

What (D) is doing is a very common Strengthen idea when you're comparing two different sample groups and assuming that they're fair to compare.

If I said Mr. K had one set of 3rd graders and Mrs. L had another set of 3rd graders. After four months, the 3rd graders took a math test and the students in Mrs. L's class scored better on average.

I'd be tempted to conclude that Mrs. L was better at teaching math. But what if she just had the stronger math students to begin with?

We need to know we're starting from the same initial reference point in order to judge that the eventual result deserves an explanation.

Check out this question:
https://www.manhattanprep.com/lsat/foru ... t5440.html

[seychelles1718]

I agree with Walt on A...Would A weaken the argument?

[tommywallach]

A is irrelevant, as described up top.

[Jseillac]

OhthatPatrick awesome explanation.