Q26 - If a corporation obtains funds

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Match the Principle

Stimulus Breakdown:
If a corp. commits fraud, the penalty should make sure they don't get to keep any of the money from the fraud or any money they made with that money.

Answer Anticipation:
Principle: Someone who commits a crime shouldn't be allowed, in any way, to profit from it.

Correct answer:
(E)

Answer choice analysis:
(A) The argument did hit "fraudulently" pretty hard, so I am expecting the correct answer to talk about some kind of crime. However, I wouldn't cut this one because it doesn't have a crime - I could see the principle being more related to "doing something wrong", and improperly maintaining your car is something wrong. However, the rest of this answer doesn't discuss divesting the driver of the benefits of what they did. Instead, it talks about creating a situation where they are forced to do the right thing in the future.

(B) This answer has a group committing a crime, but they are being punished by paying to comply with the law. They didn't need to pay back the money they made while polluting.

(C) This answer has nothing to do with any benefits the criminal may have committed.

(D) Again, this answer doesn't mention stripping the athlete of any titles/salary/endorsement money, so it doesn't match the principle underlying the stimulus.

(E) Boom. The criminal isn't being allowed to profit from their crime, which matches the situation of the fraudulent funds.

Takeaway/Pattern:
Match the Principle questions require a threading of a needle. The principle you generate needs to be specific enough that it rules out the other answers, but broad enough that you're not looking for essentially the same argument as an answer choice. It is a bit of an art, so practice!

#officialexplanation

[kyuya]

In this question you can actually eliminate many of the answer choices simply from the first sentence of this stimulus.

(A), (C), (D), all do not involve getting funds, period. Let alone fraudulently. Therefore, eliminated.

(B) and (E) are the only real contenders, and you could make the argument that (B) can be eliminated using the same criteria as (A), (C), and (D). Although they violate pollution laws, does that necessarily mean they gained the funds in an illegal way. This is no mention of money. It is up to us to assume that violating pollution laws = getting funds illegally, but that isn't true.

Furthermore, it doesn't comply with the second half of the stimulus. The stim tells us that it should completely offset the money made from bad business practice, however, (B) says to bring it in compliance with regulations to the satisfaction of regulators. Does this mean that all of the money they obtained would be erased? What if they made so much money polluting that spending the money to bring it into compliance (which may actually be a not so stringent requirement) would be not a big deal?

(E) is far from perfect but its right. We can reasonably say the commodification of a murder by the murderer themselves would be considered fraudulent, and furthermore the proceeds are COMPLETELY offset by donating to charity. The strength of the word completely in the stimulus is a big tell in this question. Although it is perhaps a stretch to use fraudulent for the first part of this question (I don't know the laws around this, but I'd assume this is illegal - didn't something like this happen with OJ?), we can confidently pick this AC because we know the second half matches up nicely, eliminating doubt.

[zen]

I thought about this a bit different than the above poster. I'm not sure we can simply eliminate choices that aren't relevant to "funds"

The principle is basically: some an entity gets funds in a fraudulent way, then the profits made in utilizing those fraudulent funds should be completely negated by the penalty; so, in the end, there was no benefit to the fraudulent action after the penalty.

(A) Wrong- How does this show support for a penalty negating a "profit" or benefit from an illegal action? There is a penalty but who knows if the automobile driver ever got a benefit from this; furthermore, how is the penalty offsetting any gain?

(B) Wrong- it never states that there was a benefit to the factory; furthermore, the penalty only brings the factory to compliance rather than offsetting whatever profit they made while violating the pollution laws.

(C) Tempting but wrong. The question gives no indication whether the community service will offset the crime the person did, just that the community will benefit. Well, will they benefit in such a way as to offset the crimes "profit" for the criminal? No clue. Eliminate.

(D) Tempting. This one got me but I over analyzed it and in turn missed simple indicators that it was wrong. It should read more like "if the athlete is caught using PEDs, then the athlete's past accomplishments and victories during the time PEDs were used will be completely reversed and taken away."
Instead, this focuses on the athlete's future. We need the penalty to attack the time when the fraudulent action occurred( in this case it's more ambiguous, maybe he didn't use them during competitions?) and the penalty should offset the "profit" we don't get this here.

(E) Threw me off at first but it makes sense. The criminal is using his crime( a.k.a. an illegal action) to profit. The penalty should offset this profit, so in this case, all the literal monetary profit goes is not given to him but to a third party. I would have liked this more had it said "to the victims of the criminal"; the third party thing messed with me, but in the end its irrelevant as long as he's getting no benefit from his illegal action.

[buddy_sikora]

I understand why E is right and A, C, and D are wrong. I had initially picked E because it is obviously the closest match in terms of matching the activity in the stimulus. However, after a second read I interpreted the principle to only apply to "corporations" and to not account for any other kinds of activity, thus eliminating E because considering a convicted criminal to fall under the scope of a "corporation" is a bigger leap than considering the same for a "factory" which is listed in answer choice B, which I ended up choosing quickly out of time constraint.

Yes, I understand where I went wrong, but I guess my broader question is, at what point do we allow an out of scope answer to be correct, and how do we determine which facts to bite the bullet on when choosing an imperfect answer?

[luke111234]

The reason I eliminated E is that writing a memoir and receiving money from the sale of that memoir is not a FRAUDULENT way of obtaining funds. The criminal may be writing about a fraudulent activity, but that in no way means the funds (money from the sale of the book) was obtained fraudulently, which is a requirement set forth in the argument: "obtains funds fraudulently." Can a LSAT god help me out here? What is wrong with how I eliminated E?

[mshinners]

Can a LSAT god help me out here? What is wrong with how I eliminated E?

I'm just a mere mortal, but hopefully I can help!

The correct answer doesn't have to include something happening fraudulently. This is a Match the Principle question, so the specific details of the passage don't need to be reflected in the answer.

Here, I'd generalize to, "Someone who commits a crime shouldn't profit from that crime." Whether that crime is fraud or something else, this principle will apply, and it captures answer choice (E).

In short, you fell into a common Matching trap - trying to match too much of the detail of the stimulus!