LR Question 21 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: In order to pressure the government of Country S…
QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption
CONCLUSION: The manufacturers think they should be allowed to export their telecommunications products to repressive countries.
REASONING: They say it’s impossible for a country to be repressive if the population can use telecommunications equipment.
ANALYSIS: Who’s to say the government won’t just keep the telecommunications equipment for itself? The manufacturers’ argument depends on the population having access to the equipment.
___________
- The manufacturers are arguing that they should be allowed to export their goods. As long as country S will allow some goods to be imported, then there is a purpose to allowing exports.
- CORRECT. If this were false, then the population would not have access to the telecommunications equipment, whether or not exports were allowed.
- This talks about whether the plan is likely to succeed. It’s just a statement of fact. The manufacturers were talking about what should happen.
- It doesn’t matter if there are better ways to oppose the government. It only matters that the telecommunications equipment will help with that goal.
- So what if R can’t succeed on its own? Country R might still contribute to ending repression. But this is not really related to the main question: will telecommunications exports help bring down government S, or will they help keep it in power?
Recap: The question begins with “In order to pressure the government of Country S”. It is a Necessary Assumption question. Learn how to master LSAT Necessary questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.
More Resources for Necessary Assumption Questions
- Negations Article: Learn about negations on the LSAT.
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements.
- Negations Drill: Practice your negation skills.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Intro to Conditional Reasoning: Learn conditional reasoning basics.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Necessary Assumption questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers necessary assumption questions.
I’m confused with this question and how B. is the right answer — the last sentence of the stim says “it is impossible for a country to remain repressive when telecommunication equipment is WIDELY available to the population of that country.” Does this not explicitly state that (rather than assume) that the equipment would not be solely in the hands of top government officials? it’s for that reason that I nixed B. initially – I thought it was a good answer but then thought, “wait, the stim tells me this wouldn’t be the case.” Can someone explain how B. is a necessary assumption in this case?
Good question! It does not. It says exactly what it says: If widely available, then no repression.
The manufacturers assume that with no ban, it WOULD be widely available. But they didn’t actually that. This is the chain of events:
1. Not widely available
2. Lift ban
3. ?????????????
4. Repression gone
In step 3, the manufacturers assume that lifting the ban will lead to widespread availability. And IF it does, then repression is gone. But they haven’t actually told us what happens if the ban is lifted. They implied what they HOPE will happen.
It’s like if you say “I want to go to law school. If I get a job that pays $1.5 million dollars in my first year as a lawyer I’ll be rich. So if I go to law school I’ll be rich.”
You haven’t said law school provides jobs that pay that much. You just sort of imply it does and assume it does. Does that make sense? If a sentence says “If” then that is a rule, not an actual factual thing that is happening. There was an old joke in the Great Depression that went “If we had some ham, we could make some ham and eggs, if we had some eggs.”. In other words, the joke is they don’t actually have anything, just ifs.
Hope that helps!
I’m a bit lost on your explanation for answer choice E. The answer choice isn’t saying that R couldn’t succeed on its own. I’m having trouble understanding how you meant that and how your statement bears any relevance to that answer being incorrect.
The entire argument hinges on the idea of pressure and telecommunication bans having the potential to counter government repression. Could you provide another explanation for why E is incorrect?
Answer E says that the government in Country S would repress citizens indefinitely if Country R doesn’t step in. This implies that Country R is the only country that can stop the repression (because without their pressure, the repression would continue indefinitely).
But the argument doesn’t require this assumption. Nothing stated in the stimulus suggests or requires the assumption that pressure from Country R is the only thing that will stop the repression.
When Graeme wrote “So what if R can’t succeed on its own? Country R might still contribute to ending repression.”, he’s essentially saying that whether or not R is the only country applying pressure is irrelevant to the argument. Pressure from R could be the decisive factor or just one of several contributing factors. What truly matters is whether R’s telecommunication equipment can help reduce repression, which is the central focus of the correct answer choice.