LSAT 138 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q18

LR Question 18 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Bus driver: Had the garbage truck not been exceeding…

QUESTION TYPE: Principle – Justify

CONCLUSION: The bus company shouldn’t reprimand me.

REASONING: I obeyed the law, and the truck was speeding.

ANALYSIS: On Principle-Justify questions, you need to connect the reasoning to the conclusion with a “should” statement.

So you just say: “If I obeyed the law AND the other didn’t ➞ reprimand”

Most of the wrong answers either talk about things other than reprimanding, or they talk about who is responsible. Nothing in the stimulus talked about responsibility.

___________

1. The conclusion is about a reprimand from the company. This is about who is responsible. Different thing.
2. The police report didn’t say who was solely responsible.
3. This tells us a sufficient condition for reprimanding. We’re looking for a sufficient condition for not reprimanding. 
4. We have no idea if this applies, because the stimulus doesn’t tell us whether the driver “could reasonably have been expected to avoid” the accident or not.
5. CORRECT. This works. We know the driver didn’t violate a regulation. This answer says that if that’s true, then there should be no reprimand.