LSAT 106 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q2

LR Question 2 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: If the government increases its funding for civilian scientific…

QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption

CONCLUSION: If the government increases it’s research funding, then the overall level of funding will decline.

REASONING: If the government increases funding, then private individuals and industries will decrease funding. They’ll no longer think research is their responsibility.

ANALYSIS: The argument is assuming that the increase in government funds won’t make up for the decrease in private funds.

We’re not told how large the government increase or the private decrease would be.

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1. Actually, the argument seems to be assuming that it’s a good idea to have private individuals and industry bear some of the burden of research.
2. CORRECT. If this isn’t true, then an increase in government funding will increase overall research funding – even if private funding declines.
3. The argument was only predicting what private donors will do, and the conclusion was about the total level of funding available. It doesn’t matter whether scientists sometimes refuse to accept those funds.
4. The author seems to like private funding, so I’m not sure why they would want to assume that multiple types of funding are bad.
5. This would help the argument; increased government funding could never increase overall funding. Funding is already as high as it can be).
    
   But this isn’t necessary. It’s only necessary that overall funding could decrease if the government increases its funding.