LSAT 6 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q19

LR Question 19 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Valitania’s long-standing practice of paying high salaries…

QUESTION TYPE: Weaken

CONCLUSION: Valitania’s practice of paying politicians high salaries has lowered the level of integrity of politicians in that country.

REASONING: The high salaries attract people who are mainly motivated by making money.

ANALYSIS: We can weaken this by showing one of two things.

1. High salaries do provide some benefit.
2. Lower salaries would also have a drawback.

In real life there are often downsides to having low salaries for politicians. They are more reliant on bribes. Qualified people may hesitate to leave high paying jobs if a public life means poverty. Only the wealthy may serve, because they don’t need money.

Any of those reasons above would also have worked as an answer choice. There are always many possibilities on a weaken question so it is valuable to think in big picture terms before looking at the answers.

___________

1. This sounds like an investment. They spend some of their money and then are rewarded with a fat salary. We might not want that sort of politician.
2. Term limits have nothing to do with anything. This answer plays on American cultural knowledge of the four year presidential terms.
3. You might think this means that greedy people aren’t drawn into politics. But it’s possible that with low salaries we could have 4 altruistic candidates. Then with high salaries we could have 4 greedy candidates. Same number of people; very different result.
4. This shows that we don’t want politicians who rely on their offices for income.
5. CORRECT. This shows that most politicians were not primarily motivated by money.

Recap: The question begins with “Valitania’s long-standing practice of paying high salaries”. It is a Weaken question. Learn how to master LSAT Weaken questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.