LSAT 136 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q3

LR Question 3 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Some members have criticized the club’s president for…

QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption

CONCLUSION: The current president was right to ask Dr. Hines to speak, even though the president didn’t consult members.

REASONING: A previous club president hired an accountant without consultation.

ANALYSIS: There are two problems here:

1. We don’t know if the previous club president was right to hire the accountant.
2. Hiring a tax accountant may be different from getting a speaker. Maybe choice of speaker always requires consultation.

___________

1. This doesn’t show that the previous club president acted appropriately when he didn’t consult.
2. Tempting, but it doesn’t matter whether club members expected to be consulted. It matters whether it was appropriate not to consult them.
   As an analogy, I don’t expect a totalitarian dictator to respect humans rights. But that doesn’t make it appropriate for him not to respect human rights.
3. It doesn’t matter what Dr. Hines did. We’re concerned with the appropriateness of the request.
4. This weakens the argument by showing that inviting a speaker is a more serious matter.
5. CORRECT. If the previous president acted inappropriately then this is hardly a good argument.