QUESTION TEXT: Since Professor Smythe has been head of the department…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: Professor Smythe was appointed with the aim of ruining the department.
REASONING: Things have gone badly for the department since Smythe was appointed.
ANALYSIS: This could be true. But maybe there was a massive crisis, and Smythe was appointed to solve the crisis. Despite valiant efforts, Smythe couldn’t prevent things from going badly.
Simply put: we have no idea why Smith was appointed.
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- This would have been if the argument said: Smythe must be a bad administrator because people say he is a bad administrator. The argument is talking about why he was appointed, which is different.
- There is no general claim. The claim is about something specific: why Smythe was appointed.
- CORRECT. It could be a coincidence that the things went badly for department once Smythe’s was appointed. We have no idea whether he was appointed to destroy the place.
- The stimulus mentions a decline in both quality and quantity. E.g. enrollment is down, and reputation is down.
- The argument isn’t circular. It uses evidence about the department’s decline to attempt to prove that Smythe was appointed to destroy the department.
Recap: The question begins with “Since Professor Smythe has been head of the department”. It is a Flawed Reasoning question. Learn how to master LSAT Flaw questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.
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