LSAT 155 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q20

LR Question 20 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Political scientist: Democracy depends on free choices…

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: In the Information Age, a highly literate society will be a democratic one.

REASONING: In the Information Age, reading skills have become essential to forming well-reasoned opinions. These well-reasoned opinions are the basis of free choice, on which democracy depends.

ANALYSIS: It seems like the political scientist is saying that democracy depends on a literate population. However, their conclusion is different. They conclude that all literate societies will become democratic, which does not follow from the premises.

This is a classic necessary-sufficient error. Democratic societies must be literate, but that doesn’t mean that all literate societies are democratic.

___________

1. CORRECT. See above – this is the error we identified.
2. The author doesn’t do this. The author only says that reading skills are essential.
3. This is outside the scope of the question. We don’t know anything about the reasons for doing something.
4. The author isn’t generalizing anything. They’ve just made a conclusion based on an incorrect negation.
5. This isn’t what’s happening here – it’s not even an error! If something is happening, then all its prerequisites must be necessarily occurring, otherwise they aren’t prerequisites.

Recap: The question begins with “Political scientist: Democracy depends on free choices”. It is a Flawed Reasoning question. Learn more about LSAT Flaw questions in our guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning question types.