LR Question 20 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: University president: We will be forced to reduce…
QUESTION TYPE: Sufficient Assumption
CONCLUSION: We must market our programs more aggressively to keep quality.
REASONING: Without marketing, we can’t increase enrollment. We will have to reduce spending if we can’t increase enrollment.
ANALYSIS: This sounds like a good argument. But maybe the university can reduce spending without hurting quality. Here’s the chain from the stimulus.
Evidence:
Quality Reduce Spending ➞ Increase Enrollment ➞ Marketing
Conclusion:
Quality ➞ Marketing
There’s an arrow missing between quality and not reducing spending. You need an arrow showing that not reducing spending is a necessary condition for quality:
‘Quality ➞ Reduce Spending’
Sufficient Assumption questions are really simple. One element of the conclusion isn’t linked to the rest of the evidence. You need a statement that links it. You may have to take the contrapositive to see how the right answer fits in the chain of logic.
___________
- Err….the president said that increasing enrollment would help the university keep quality. This weakens the argument.
- Increase enrollment ➞
Reduce Spending.
This doesn’t help link quality to the rest of the evidence. - Marketing ➞ Increase enrollment
Same as B. - CORRECT. This works:
Reduce Spending ➞Quality,
contrapositive: Quality ➞Reduce Spending - Marketing ➞
Reduce Spending
Same as B.
More Resources for Sufficient Assumption Questions
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Intro to Conditional Reasoning: Learn conditional reasoning basics.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Sufficient Assumption questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers sufficient assumption questions.
How do we know that not reducing spending is a necessary condition for quality, and not the other way around?
It’s because of the conclusion: the conclusion is that quality requires marketing. We have to move left to right when using conditional diagrams, so to get to marketing we must add other items which connect quality and marketing.
Using some contrapositives we get the chain that goes: not reduce spending –> increase enrolment –> marketing
Ultimately this comes down to practice with conditional reasoning. If this question gives you trouble, working on those statements will help. I also have a practice tool for LSATHacks members: https://lsathacks.com/lsat-logic-tool/
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.