LSAT 6 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q22

LR Question 22 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: The trustees of the Avonbridge summer drama workshop…

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: The policy has been adopted to ensure that only applicants with the most highly evaluated auditions are offered scholarship.

REASONING: The scholarships will be offered to the top 10% of local applicants and the top 10% of non-local applicants.

ANALYSIS: The policy will almost certainly fail to achieve its goal. Suppose that the local area produces much better auditions than anywhere else. The trustees will still have to give scholarships to 10% of non-local applicants, even if they performed worse. The reverse is also true: non-local applicants might be much more talented. They still cannot get any of the scholarships that go the local applicants.

The major effect of the current policy is guaranteed diversity in the student body. Students will not only be from the surrounding area or only from out of town.

If they wanted to select the best students the trustees should simply have a policy of giving scholarships to the top 10% of all auditioning applicants.

___________

1. The stimulus is only concerned with the best applicants being offered scholarships. The conclusion isn’t about whether the students will actually attend.
2. This sounds tempting, but the stimulus didn’t say the trustees wanted to give scholarships to the best applicants. The trustees want to give scholarships to students who audition best.
3. The conclusion is about who will be offered scholarships. The trustees don’t seem to care whether students actually need the money.
4. CORRECT. Yes. This is the major problem with the system. Even if the top applicants are all non-local some local applicants must receive scholarships.
5. The system could just as easily favor local applicants. What if all of the best auditions are non-local? The system may be unfair, but we don’t know which way.

Recap: The question begins with “The trustees of the Avonbridge summer drama workshop”. It is a Flawed Reasoning question. Learn more about LSAT Flaw questions in our guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning question types.