LR Question 20 Explanation, by LSATHacks
QUESTION TEXT: Scientist: Some critics of public funding for this…
QUESTION TYPE: Must be True
FACTS:
- Some critics think that the project should only be funded publicly if it can be shown how it would benefit the public.
- If the critics were correct then the project would not have tremendous public support.
- Yet even the critics acknowledge that the project does have tremendous public support.
ANALYSIS: We can conclude that the critics are wrong to say that the project should only receive public funding if a benefit can be demonstrated.
We cannot conclude that the project should receive public funding. We can just say that the critics’ criterion was wrong.
___________
- Not quite. Benefits might still be relevant. It’s just that the critics were wrong to say that a clearly identifiable benefit was necessary.
- No. There might be some other reason why the funding is not justified.
- Hard to say. Public support only indicates that the critics’ criterion is wrong.
- Who knows? Maybe the public has no idea what the project does and they just think it sounds neat.
- CORRECT. The fact that the public supports the project shows that the critics are wrong that a benefit must be indicated.
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I diagrammed this as follows:
continued public funding justified —-> they’ve indicated how the public will benefit from it.
Is this correct and thank you in advance :)
Yes, that’s correct! The “if” introduces the sufficient condition, and the “only if” introduces the necessary condition.
Hi Graeme, I answered this question correctly, but I got caught up in what I believe is a logical inconsistency in the argument – I am probably wrong, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to raise the question. The critics claim that the project shouldn’t receive public funding on the basis of their criteria, The argument states that because the project has public support presumably without the critic’s criteria having been met, that the critics criteria was wrong. But the critics didn’t claim that the project should be supported by the public, but rather that the project should receive public funding. When I came to this question, I immediately looked for an answer that established that a project which has the support of the public will always receive public funding, i.e. those things are one and the same, or something along those lines. This tripped me up when I couldn’t find such an answer.
Am I wrong?
This is a must be true (MBT) question, so we need to find an answer choice that is certain to be true given the truth of the stimulus. We can’t argue with certainty that the stimulus equates public support with being deserving of public funding. We’d need another premise to do that–something to the effect of “if a project has tremendous public support that even its critics acknowledge, then it should receive public funding”, which is very close to what you’d pre-phrased. But, because that is an entirely novel premise, it’s not the best pre-phrase for a MBT question.
When you approach this question type, your best bet isn’t to look for a gap in the argument (if one is presented). You should focus instead on having as complete an understanding of the statements in the stimulus as possible, mapping out any conditional reasoning–either internally or on the page–and staying as close as you can to the letter of the passage when you choose an answer. So, I don’t recommend pre-phrasing for MBT, but if you do these three things, you’ll have your best chance at selecting the correct answer choice.