Q8 - If the burden of a proposed

[lukas.marko]

I picked B, which I guess is the biggest trap answer. Although I understand how D is correct, I have a hard time eliminating B.

Couldn't reintroducing rock salt be seen as an expansion of road maintenance? Even so, I guess there is no evidence to suggest that the local sales tax (which is the thing burdening people with low incomes) would increase to fund the expansion. Is this why B is incorrect?

[ohthatpatrick]

I think you nailed the self-analysis.

(B), indeed, is the all-too tempting trap, which at least shows that you knew the correct answer had to establish a disproportionate burden on low income people.

But, as you suspected, the language of (B) doesn't succeed in making it clear that the plan to reintroduce rock salt would introduce any new burden (since local sales taxes wouldn't necessarily change). Also, it might be dubious to call the RE-introduction of rock salt an expansion of road maintenance as you initially did in supporting (B).

We might still have a silo full of rock salt, so reverting back to a policy of using it might not actually involve much hassle/expense.

(D), for people who are wondering why that would help, points to a distinction between lower and higher income people. Lower income people are more likely to have older cars. Older cars are more likely to suffer the corrosive effects of the rock salt. So, lower income people are likely to shoulder more burden when it comes to the consequences of using rock salt again.

(C) comes close to suggesting the same story as (D), but since cars cost twice as much across the board, this doesn't concretely point to a distinction between high/low income people.

(A) and (E) try to establish that low income people use the soon-to-be salty roads less than do high income people, but that would be closer to establishing that low income people will enjoy disproportionately less benefit ... rather than disproportionately more harm.

Tough question for a #8. Even though the beginning of LR is generally easier, we often see a pretty thorny problem in the 7-10 range. One of the hallmarks of a tough problem is that there is trap answer that uses keywords to make itself very appealing, while the correct answer relates to the keywords without being as obvious about it.

Not to make you overly paranoid as you do POE, but sometimes in a Down-to-2 situation, (for LR or RC), I check to see if one of the answers I like has obviously likeable characteristics while the other has disguised likeable characteristics (i.e. it requires more thought/understanding of the passage to see why that answer could be correct). Generally, the latter type of answer is the correct one.

Good luck.

[shirando21]

how do we reach this :"Older cars are more likely to suffer the corrosive effects of the rock salt."?

[Dkrajewski30]

The above poster may not see this, but incase anybody else is having a similar issue....

We know that older cars are more likely to suffer the corrosive effects of the rock salt because we're told in the Application that newer cars are better protected against said effects than are older cars. It doesn't explicitly state this, necessarily, but it's reasonable to infer from 'cars are now better protected...' that the Application is referencing newer cars. Of course, it may not be a perfect inference. After all, maybe older cars just got some expensive add-ons to help mitigate the corrosive effects. In any case, we can assume that the older vehicles that the low-income people purchase are less likely to be protected against the negative effects than are the cars being driven around by the higher-income people. And given that consideration, we can establish that the application of the principle is justified. The low-income people are bound to be disproportionally burdened by the policy, given that they'll be driving the more vulnerable cars. And so for that reason, the city shouldn't go ahead with the policy.

I should add that I got this one wrong while taking PT67. I went with the right answer at first glance, but changed it to be B. after. I believe I was conflating 'burden' entirely with 'financial burden', and so I was thinking 'So what if the low-income people drive the older cars? That's no financial burden.' Maybe the LSAT is aware that many people conflate burden with 'financial burden' and so they take advantage of that interpretation in the answer choices.

[daijob]

Hi, I'm still not sure why B is wrong...it says Road maintenance is funded by sales taxes, and that will disproportionately burden people with low incomes...if that is true, introducing the plan again seems burden the poor people and should be halted.
In the past it might be burden to them too, just not indicated in the application.
And they have this new principle, don't burden the poor people, so they have to stop performing the plan.
Why is B wrong?

Is it actually...because in application it talks about reintroduce rock salt, but in B it says road maintenance and they are different things?

Thank you

[ohthatpatrick]

What is the causal chain you're picturing in which reintroducing rock salt puts an extra burden on low income people?

The causal chain in (D) is this
rock salt reintroduced -> rock salt messes up cars -> it ESPECIALLY messes up older cars and low income people are ESPECIALLY likely to own older cars.

I assume that the imagined causal chain for (B) is this
rock salt reintroduced -> road maintenance costs go up -> local sales taxes go up and low income people are ESPECIALLY burdened by local sales taxes.

Which of the two causal chains just laid out is more "on the page"?

The one for (D) is all explicitly given.

The one for (B) forces us to make two superfluous assumptions:
1. when we start using salt again, it represents an INCREASE in road maintenance. Who knows? We might be using a different de-icing agent right now. That agent might be more costly and more labor intensive. Using salt could easily be the cheaper, easier option (we only abandoned it because it messed up cars)

2. IF we were to increase road maintenance services by going back to salt, there would eventually be some directly connected increase in local sales taxes. Who knows?

Hope this helps.

[sahaya.21]

I also picked D initially but then switched to B.

I am just wondering how "People with low incomes are more likely to PURCHASE older vehicles" translates to people with low incomes are more likely to HAVE older vehicles. Just because they are more likely to purchase older vehicles doesn't mean they actually purchased them. Maybe they take the train instead of incurring the cost of owning a vehicle. But just that if they WERE to purchase a vehicle, it'd be an older one. This was the distinction that tripped me up because it seemed loose.

[erikwoodward10]

I eliminated B for another reason. The principle talks about the "burden of the proposed policy change", and not specifically the funding of that policy change. I kept B until I got to D, realizing that D is the better answer. I also thought that I could eliminate B because the I took the burden of the policy change to mean the effect of its implementation, and not the funding required to implement it. Is this a valid reason to eliminate B?

[ohthatpatrick]

I think you're getting rid of (B) for the same reason we have been.

IF the funding of a proposed policy change translated into a BURDEN on low income people, that would still allow the Principle to be used.

There's just nothing given to suggest that switching to rock salt (the proposed policy change) has ANY effect on funding ... does it need more funding? less funding? the same? We have no idea.

You're correctly thinking that the "burden of a proposed policy change" = "the effects of the policy change".

And what we've been saying is that there's nothing in this problem that suggests that an "effect of the policy change" will be "a change to local sales taxes" or even "a change in how local sales tax revenue is allocated".

[M.M.]

I think you nailed the self-analysis.



(D), for people who are wondering why that would help, points to a distinction between lower and higher income people. Lower income people are more likely to have older cars. Older cars are more likely to suffer the corrosive effects of the rock salt. So, lower income people are likely to shoulder more burden when it comes to the consequences of using rock salt again.

This seems problematic to me. The argument simply says "the city claims that cars are now better protected from salt's corrosive properties" - this does not mean that newer cars are more protected than older cars. It might mean that if it said something like "the city claims that cars are now made to be better protected from salt's corrosive properties" but it doesn't. I mean I guess you'd have to assume something relatively big to assume that that isn't what it's talking about, but still - that's annoying. It seems like the assumption required for both B and D to work are both very small.

[ohthatpatrick]

You're nailing it with this asssessment:
I mean I guess you'd have to assume something relatively big to assume that that isn't what it's talking about, but still - that's annoying. It seems like the assumption required for both B and D to work are both very small.

Right, in order to read "cars are now better protected from salt's corrosive properties than they were five years ago", as something other than "newer cars are better protected than older cars", you'd have to invent some scenario that nowadays people add a protective coating to their cars that better protects the cars from salt?

If that were the case, we'd probably say "people are now better protecting their cars from salt's corrosive properties than they were five years ago".

I do agree that saying "cars are now better protected" could be interpreted multiple ways, but the most conservative interpretation is that "newer cars are better protected than older cars".

At the start of ever LR section, LSAT warns us against making any "assumptions that are by commonsense standards superfluous, implausible, or incompatible with the passage".

To humor (B), we'd have to make a big superfluous assumption,
"Reintroducing rock salt as a de-icing agent would cause local sales taxes to go up"

To NOT like (D), we'd have to make a (smaller) superfluous assumption,
"Cars are better protected, not because of the car itself, but because of something people are doing to the car"

[TillyS471]

Hi, I'm still not sure why B is wrong...it says Road maintenance is funded by sales taxes, and that will disproportionately burden people with low incomes...if that is true, introducing the plan again seems burden the poor people and should be halted.
In the past it might be burden to them too, just not indicated in the application.
And they have this new principle, don't burden the poor people, so they have to stop performing the plan.
Why is B wrong?

Is it actually...because in application it talks about reintroduce rock salt, but in B it says road maintenance and they are different things?

Thank you

B is wrong because when you apply B to the application, and the principle, it does not help justify it.

First, look at the principle: the principle is saying, if the burden of a proposed policy change, pay close attention here : the BURDEN , burden of what? of a POLICY CHANGE!

B says: road maintenance burdens people with low incomes, but so what ? ROAD MAINTENANCE, is NOT A POLICY CHANGE. it is just road maintenance. regardless of if road maintenance and application of rock are in same category or not.

hence B is irrelevant to this principle.

D directly answers, why the Policy CHANGE !!! note change here! change from NOT using rock salt to USING it, disproportionally burden people with low incomes.