LSAT 151 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q2

LR Question 2 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Physician: A tax on saturated fat, which was intended to reduce …

QUESTION TYPE: Principle – Justify

CONCLUSION: The tax shouldn’t have been repealed so fast.

REASONING: It had some bad consequences, but it was only in effect for 7 months.

ANALYSIS: The tax had some unintended and negative consequences. But the physician still thinks we should’ve kept it. The main reason given is that it was only in effect for 7 months.

The principle should tell us that 7 months is too soon to repeal a tax. It needs to be in effect for longer to fully evaluate its effectiveness.

___________

1. Nothing has been said about the actual impact it had on people’s health. This is unsupported.
2. CORRECT. If the tax needs to be in effect for at least 1 year to assess its impact, that supports that this tax was repealed too soon. It was repealed after only 7 months.
3. The physician’s conclusion is that the tax was repealed too soon. That’s different to what you should do before it’s implemented.
4. We don’t know most people evaded it. It just says it encouraged people to evade it. And besides, this tells us when we should repeal a tax. The physician’s conclusion was that this one was repealed too soon.
5. This tells us when we should apply a tax in the first place. That’s not the principle we need.