LSAT 102 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q24

LR Question 24 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Trade official: Country X deserves economic…

QUESTION TYPE: Principle – Necessary Assumption

CONCLUSION: We should still sell country X farm equipment.

REASONING: We like the food country X produces, so we should help them produce more food, even though they deserve to be punished.

ANALYSIS: The trade official is assuming that we should sometimes allow injustice to go unpunished if it serves our interest.

___________

1. Agriculture doesn’t have to be generally more important. In this case, it only has to be true that food imports are more important than punishment.
2. Actually, the argument is proposing that we enter an international market and keep popular food products available.
3. This is too strong. In some cases, it might be worth hurting ourselves to punish protectionism. It just has to be true that in this case we shouldn’t hurt ourselves to punish another country.
4. “Most” answer choices are almost never correct for necessary assumption questions. You can negate them by saying “less than most”, which could mean 50%.
    
   That’s a general point. As for this specific answer choice: who cares what’s true most of the time? The official is talking about what should happen in one specific situation.
5. CORRECT. If we should never balance justice by considering our interests, then we should definitely punish country X. They deserve punishment.

Recap: The question begins with “Trade official: Country X deserves economic”. It is a Principle question. Learn more about LSAT Principle questions in our guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning question types.