LSAT 130 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q3

LR Question 3 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Letter to the editor: The Planning Department budget

QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen

CONCLUSION: It is wrong to say that the department now spends 5x as much to do the same duties.

REASONING: The author admits that the department does spend five times as much. They give no further reasoning.

ANALYSIS: There are two components to this situation:

Spending five times as much.

Doing the same duties.

We know the department spends five times as much. The duties are what we don’t know about. Presumably the right answer will say the department now has additional duties.

___________

1. We don’t care about other departments. This argument is only about the Planning Department.
2. So? This tells us nothing about the overall set of duties the department performs. And it doesn’t dispute that overall spending rose.
3. So? This answer doesn’t dispute that overall spending did ultimately rise 5x between 2001 and now.
4. This weakens the argument. If the figures weren’t adjusted, then it’s possible the department isn’t really spending 5x as much.
   I.e. if we’ve had 100% inflation since 2001, then $500,000 now would equal $250,000 then. So only 2.5x more. But inflation adjusting the figures uses constant dollars and allows comparison across time.
    
   (In case you were curious, the US has had a 38.1% increase in inflation since 2001. So $100,000 in 2001 would be worth $138,000 in 2017. This has nothing to do with the argument though.)
5. CORRECT. If this is true, then the department has greater duties than in 2001. So it is not true the department is spending 5x for the same duties.