LSAT 101 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q9

LR Question 9 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Historian: Anyone who thinks that the terrors of the ancient regime…

QUESTION TYPE: Principle – Strengthen

CONCLUSION: Some regular citizens of Q were murderers.

REASONING: The government was mostly made up of ordinary people.

ANALYSIS: If a soldier kills an enemy in a war, is it murder? If a warden executes a prisoner in a jail, is that murder?

They’re both types of killing, but not every type of killing is necessarily murder. Likewise, the historian hasn’t shown that the killings in Q were murder. The right answer supports the idea that the political killings were murder.

___________

1. No one talked about murder being justified.
2. The historian didn’t say fanaticism was justified. And he argued that not every regime member was a fanatic.
3. CORRECT. There are different types of killing, not all of them murder. This lets us call what the citizens did “murder”, which support the historian’s conclusion.
4. The historian didn’t mention inhumanity.
5. The historian was arguing that some citizens weren’t fanatics.

Recap: The question begins with “Historian: Anyone who thinks that the terrors of the ancient regime”. It is a Principle Justify question. Learn how to master LSAT Principle Justify questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.