LSAT 130 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q7

LR Question 7 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Although many political candidates object to being made

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Parallel Reasoning

CONCLUSION: Negative advertising helps candidates.

REASONING: Most victorious candidates have been targeted by negative advertising.

ANALYSIS: This argument ignores an obvious alternative explanation: the winning candidates were attacked because they were winning. Why would you waste advertising dollars attacking a loser?

This doesn’t mean the negative advertising helped the candidates. It was a symptom of winning, rather than a cause of winning.

To parallel this, look for a situation where there’s an obvious alternate explanation: the thing being complained about is a side effect of success, rather than its cause.

___________

1. This isn’t even close. A better analogy would be “Although many people dislike sweating, it turns out it helps people because most of those in good health often sweat.”
   As with C, we also know from outside experience that exercise is helpful. Whereas negative attack ads are generally considered bad, so it would be counterintuitive if they were helpful.
2. CORRECT. This matches exactly. It is likely that successful actors have harsh reviews because they are successful. Once you are sufficiently high profile, at least some people will dislike you. Harsh reviews are a byproduct of success, but that doesn’t mean a harsh review helps.
3. This is like A. It simply mentions something people dislike. But, we already know from outside experience that studying is helpful! Whereas it would be counterintuitive if negative attack ads were actually helpful.
4. This is just a true statement. It’s not a flawed argument!
5. This is a bad argument, but it makes a different flaw. To be parallel, this would have had to say something like “the sleepiness must actually be helpful…etc.”
   Instead this talks about the sleepiness being acceptable. Which is like saying “hangovers must be good, because you enjoy drinking.”