LSAT 157 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q6

LR Question 6 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Democratic societies in which there is widespread discontent…

QUESTION TYPE: Principle

CONCLUSION: People more often blame politicians than they blame powerful figures who are equally or more responsible, because they feel they have more control over the politicians.

REASONING: The cause of people more frequently blaming politicians is not that they are more familiar to people.

ANALYSIS: We need to figure out which of the generalizations apply in this case. Here, the author is choosing one explanation over the other. The generalization will probably be related to this choice – maybe that familiarity with a figure does not often impact the blame they receive, or that people often blame those they feel they have control over.

___________

1. This generalization is not employed by the author – the stimulus does not compare who is perceived to have power.
2. This is not what the author is doing in making the choice noted above. We need something that explains the author’s decision to choose the control explanation over the familiarity explanation.
3. This is the opposite of what we want. If this were the answer, the author would choose the familiarity explanation – but they did not.
4. This answer is incorrect. The author’s choice was not about whether publicly known people are held sufficiently responsible, but rather which people get more blame and why.
5. CORRECT. This exactly matches the author’s choice – people are more inclined to blame a publicly known person they have power over, so they blame the politicians they elect.

Recap: The question begins with “Democratic societies in which there is widespread discontent”. It is a Principle question. Learn more about LSAT Principle questions in our guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning question types.