Q25 - Situation: In the island nation

[susanpelletier]

I'm having trouble understanding how the second example in the stimulus relates to the first, and subsequently what type of relationship I'm looking for in answer E. Thanks!

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

So the stimulus presents both a situation and an analysis of that situation. The question stem asks us to find an answer choice presents a situation that conforms to the analysis.

The situation is that there are two objectives, and in the process of achieving the first objective measures are taken that undermine the ability to accomplish the second objective. This is because if the first objective (inducing people not to drive) is fully met, there will be no tax revenues to subsidize electricity.

In answer choice (E), the more the highway administration is successful in getting motorists to use other routes, the less money they will have to build a new bridge.

Let's look at the incorrect answer choices:

(A) provides not two objectives, but just one - to encourage library users to return books promptly.
(B) provides an objective (limiting use of overnight delivery) that if accomplished would not undermine the ability to accomplish the second, but helps to accomplish the second objective (covering costs associated with overnight delivery).
(C) does not provide two objectives where success with the former impedes the latter.
(D) does not provided two objectives where the success with the former impedes the latter. Sparing customer's the trouble of individual tips will not impede the restaurant's ability to augment the low wages of its servers.

Hope that helps!

[a8l367]

IMHO in E the second objective is to "generate a fund" and this objective can't be more or less successful bc a fund either will be generated or not.

Can someone comment?

[ohthatpatrick]

In the original,
if they succeed at discouraging driving, there will be less gasoline bought, and thus less revenue to funnel towards lowering electricity costs.

In (E),
if they succeed in getting motorists to use other routes, there will be fewer people paying the bridge toll, and thus less revenue to funnel towards the "new bridge fund".


You're interpreting "to generate a reserve fund" as a binary: they do or they don't generate a fund.

We could similarly say the same thing with "to raise money": you do or you don't raise money.

But that's not a very realistic real world interpretation. Raising money, generating funds, reducing prices ... these things CAN be expressed as a binary "you do or don't raise/generate/reduce", but it makes more sense to think of them on a continuum.

Raising $10,000 is importantly different than raising $10, even though in both cases "you did raise money".

The ANALYSIS is phrased in comparative terms, not absolute terms.

It would make no sense to speak of "the greater the success", if you were measuring things as a binary. There are only two levels of success in a binary: total success or total failure.

You wouldn't be able to construct a formulation that put success on a sliding scale of greater / lesser.

Hope this helps.