LR Question 22 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Lawyer: Did Congleton assign the best available…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning – Exception
CONCLUSION: The lawyer claims that the witness lied when they said that Congleton wanted the project to fail.
REASONING: The lawyer got the witness to admit that Congleton assigned the best graphic artist and writer to the project and in fact everyone Congleton assigned was top notch.
ANALYSIS: The correct answer describes a necessary condition for the project’s failure. But we don’t even know if the project failed. The question actually isn’t relevant: we’re just trying to figure out whether the witness was lying.
___________
- In that case, Congleton would have had to appoint the best people even though she wanted the project to fail.
- CORRECT. We don’t even know if the project did fail. We’re just trying to determine whether or not Congleton wanted it to. This gives us no info about that.
- It’s possible that Congleton tried to cleverly sabotage the project (by appointing a team that would fight amongst themselves) while making it look like she did everything to make it succeed (by appointing the “best” people.)
- To tell a lie you have to know that you’re not telling the truth. The witness may simply have been mistaken, in which case the lawyer’s conclusion is wrong.
- The best people can’t do much without time or resources.
More Resources for Flaw Questions
- Flaw drills: Use these to practice making examples of abstract flaws.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Flaw questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers flaw questions.
I got this answer correct, but while I was doing the test under timed conditions, this question sucked up a lot of time for me because I was racking my brain between answer choice A and B. I ultimately decided on B, but I do not see why A is a good description of a flaw made by the lawyer. Could you kindly elaborate the difference between A and B?
B is about whether the project fails. But the conclusion is about Colgate’s state of mind.
As for A, if Colgate was *forced* to assign those people, then the fact that they did assign them has no bearing on Colgate’s state of mind. Like suppose I say:
1. The debt collector told you to pay your debts immediately or be arrested
2. You paid your debts
3. Therefore, you wanted to pay your debts
It is a lousy argument. You pay the debts not because you want to, but rather because the threat of jail forces you to.