LR Question 25 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: University president: Our pool of applicants has been…
QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption
CONCLUSION: We should raise tuition.
REASONING: Low tuition might be the cause of our problems.
ANALYSIS: The president gets ahead of himself. He says that low tuition might be the cause of the problem. By the end of the argument he’s convinced himself that low tuition is the cause of the problem.
For the negations, I haven’t used a narrow, grammatical approach. A negation is really just “anything the statement says is false.” Take a look at what I did with answers D and E, for example. Those are negations, but it’s obvious they cause no harm to the argument.
___________
- CORRECT. The negation of this answer destroys the argument.
Negation: The low tuition explanation doesn’t apply in this case. - We’re not concerned about actual quality. We’re concerned with what parents think determines quality.
Negation: Quality doesn’t depend on tuition. - The president didn’t say that tuition is sufficient. He said we need to raise tuition. That’s a necessary condition. The president doesn’t need to assume that raising tuition is also a sufficient condition.
Negation: An increase in tuition might not lead to a larger applicant pool. - Tempting, but it doesn’t matter if there are additional explanations. Those explanations could be wrong. It only matters if the president’s explanation applies.
Negation: There exists another, really stupid explanation for low enrollment: Evil clowns are frightening away prospective students. - The president is talking about the overall level of tuition. It doesn’t matter if it’s gone up a bit. It only matters how high tuition is compared to other universities.
Negation: Tuition has increased $1 in recent years.
Recap: The question begins with “University president: Our pool of applicants”. It is a Necessary Assumption question. To practice more Necessary Assumption questions, have a look at the LSAT Questions by Type page.
I chose E for this one because I thought that if they had increased their tuition, then that would eliminate the possibility that they’re charging too little for their tuition/fees. But I guess increasing is not the same as an absolute high tuition/fees. You don’t know by how much they increased
Exactly right. They could have increased their tuition by $1, and be well under market. It’s important to negate answers in the slightest way possible. On the right answer this will still wreck the argument.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.
Thanks for your effort. Really appreciate it. Was wondering if u have suggestions about how to master the reading comprehension section. I am really struggling with it. I have read about many approaches and I guess I confused myself.
Hi Mariana, for tips on how to improve your accuracy and speed on Reading Comprehension, you should check out Graeme’s article, “How to go faster at LSAT Reading Comprehension”: https://lsathacks.com/guide/faq/how-to-go-faster-reading-comprehension/
The LSAT Hacks Reading Comprehension Mastery Seminar is also a great way to boost your score on RC. You can find more information about it here: https://lsathacks.com/rc-mastery-seminar/
Dear Graeme, I’m studying for the LSAT for FEB and am just hitting the 62-70s range for the PTs, so I anticipate I will be going through most of these shortly. As I do, I’m just going to jot my thoughts down on some of these questions/answer choices and their accompanying analysis. I am a pretty high scorer (admittedly not as high as you, I’m topping out at 172 right now), so I hope my two cents comes in handy.
Anyway, as per this particular question, I tossed answer D for a different, more basic reason; I realized that this is directly contradicted by the stimulus, “One possible explanation of this unwelcome phenomenon is . . .” So the answer choice becomes irrelevant. Your negation is awesome, by the way.
Zkchrumz