LR Question 12 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: The chairperson should not have released the Election…
QUESTION TYPE: Sufficient Assumption
CONCLUSION: The chairperson shouldn’t have released the report.
REASONING: The chairperson didn’t ask any other committee members whether the report should be released.
ANALYSIS: On sufficient assumption questions, you should look for a gap between reasoning and conclusion.
Here, we know only one fact: the members weren’t asked. We need to connect this to the conclusion. To prove that release was wrong, we should say “if members weren’t asked, then release was wrong”. The right answer is worded a bit differently (it’s harder to understand!) but it has the same effect.
Normally, you can diagram sufficient assumption questions. That’s because there are multiple conditional statements to link together. But this question doesn’t even have a conditional statement to diagram. There are just two separate facts. Diagramming is a useful tool, but don’t try to apply it blindly where it has no use.
___________
- CORRECT. The contrapositive of this is: “
consent➞permissible”
Since the chairperson didn’t ask the members, we don’t know whether they consented Therefore, the release was not permissible. - This weakens the argument. It doesn’t prove that the release was ok, but this fact at least shows the members approved of the report.
- We don’t know whether any commission members had objections. This doesn’t help.
Objection ➞permissible - This doesn’t work. It’s possible that members would have agreed to a release if they had been consulted.
We need something that shows the release was wrong because the members weren’t consulted. - This doesn’t necessarily show the release was wrong. The stimulus never said that a release must obey the preferences of all members.
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.
This is already explained on this page and in the comments, but this question helped me grok what the LSAT does with sufficient assumption questions, so I thought I’d share how I made sense of it. Maybe helpful to others?
Initially, I had the same objections others have voiced: the argument only points toward “any members,” not “most.” And suggests the need to “consult,” not get their “consent.” LSAT’s chosen answer seemed to be doing too much work.
What I took away from this is that sufficient assumption answers can correctly do MORE than the argument requires, as long as they’re sufficient to reach the argument’s conclusion.
It starts with the question: “The argument’s conclusion can be properly inferred if which one of the following is assumed?”
It says “if,” not “if and only if.” Namely, the correct answer is one possible assumption, not the only possible one. (It’s a sufficient assumption, not a necessary one.)
So, yes, the original argument merely required consulting “any” members (1 or more). That’s fewer than “most members.” But if the chair is required to get “most members” on board, then they’re certainly required to get 1or more (“any”)! I.e., getting “most members” is not necessary to infer the argument, but it is sufficient.
Ditto “consent.” The argument didn’t require “consent,” it just required consultation. But if you get consent, then you’ve certainly consulted! Consent likewise is sufficient for consultation, even if it isn’t necessary.
To illustrate, we can assume that the chair is required to get consent from at least 6/10 members (“most”). If you then asked, “Does the chair have to consult any members?”, the answer would be yes. Because they have to consult at least 6 if they want consent from them.
It so happens that we could also justify the argument if we assume that the chair is merely required to solicit feedback from 1/10 members, and that the chair can then ignore their feedback. Here too, if asked “does the chair have to consult with any members,” the answer would be yes. They have to consult with 1, and they’re free to ignore the feedback. But this isn’t the only possible assumption to justify the argument.
That’s a great explanation, thank you!
Because of the word “most” in answer A, it makes A correct in this question.
I’m still confused with the word “any”. Doesn’t “any” mean “at least one”? Because answer A says “ONLY if MOST other members”, which sets a condition that contradicts the stimulus. If the condition for the release to be permissible is that “most other member give their consent”, than it would be wrong to say that the chairman was wrong because he did not consult ANY member; because even if ONE member had consented, than he would still be wrong, because it should have been MOST – not some, note one, but most.
Can anyone help me? Thanks in advance.
This is a sufficient assumption question, so we’re looking for an answer choice that we can plug into the stimulus (between the premises and conclusion), and that would ensure that the conclusion follows from the premises.
We know based on answer choice (A) that:
permissible –> most give consent
contrapositive: ~most give consent –> ~permissible
Yes, “any” means at least one. So, if we know that “not any” (i.e. “no”) members were consulted, then we know that it’s impossible for most to have given consent. That triggers the contrapositive of the conditional statement in (A), giving us the conclusion of the stimulus: the chairperson should not have released the report.
Hi! First let me say thank you for your awesome website!! It’s truly a great help! The problem with A that I have is that the stimulus says he shouldn’t have released it because he didn’t. CONSULT with any of the members. Answer choice A it would be permissible only if most had given their CONSENT. Aren’t those 2 different things? Shouldn’t the chairperson only have to CONSULT with them and that would be ok even without him getting their CONSENT?
Thanks for your comment–it’s great to hear you’ve gotten so much from the site!
The gap in this argument is that we need something that shows that the committee members needed to be consulted before the report could be permissibly released. An answer choice that just says that the members needed to agree to a release does not fill this gap because maybe they would have agreed whether or not they had been consulted — we don’t know. In order to give your consent, though, you need to be consulted; giving your consent isn’t just agreeing theoretically, it requires consultation.
Here’s the chain: ~consultation –> ~consent –> ~permissible
Right, but answer choice D has “had they been consulted” in there, too. It’s not just saying “only if each would have agreed.” it’s saying “agree + consulted.” Which, is what A seems to be saying as well (“consent = consultation + permission given”, as you note). I’m still not understanding the difference between A & D here. Thanks.
OK actually, I just re-read Sabrina’s original response, and I think I understand it now. Hear me out: I get that the Most/Each wording isn’t a factor in this question (you just need one), but is D incorrect because it’s focuses on the AGREEMENT of members, rather than on the CONSULTATION of members? The stimulus doesn’t address (care about) the theoretical agree/disagree opinions of other members, it’s only saying the chairperson was wrong because they straight up didn’t even talk to anyone about it. (Ex: the commission could have a policy where the chairperson can still release reports even if every single member theoretically disagrees, as long as they consult at minimum one member about the action. The conclusion in the stimulus about the chairperson being not justified still holds true. Applying D would not necessarily justify that conclusion!) Answer choice A is just so TRICKY due to the word “Consent” !! That actually makes it sound more like it’s focusing on AGREEMENT rather than CONSULTATION! Which is why I immediately crossed it off— I thought I was being all smart (in a sense, still, I was), because I knew that the argument wasn’t focusing on the agreement but rather the consultation. Oh, the LSAT.
I am still confused by the explanation for D. What makes D wrong? You say, “We need something that shows the release was wrong because the members weren’t consulted.” How does A do this? Is it because the chairperson does not need a unanimous agreement from the other members of the commission?
D is wrong because the members might have all agreed, had they been consulted. D is a hypothetical.
Whereas the problem in the stimulus was the lack of consultation, period. A directly focusses on the lack of consultation itself.
Hi Josh,
Yes, it’s all about the word ANY. The question is looking for something that explains why the fact that no one was consulted makes it impermissible to release the report. (A) says that it would have been okay to release the report only if most members consented. This gives a reason that consulting no one was impermissible.
The correct answer wouldn’t need to have MOST in it. If (A) had said that the report could only be released if one member consented, consulting no one would still make it wrong, and (A) would still be correct.
Hope that helps!
The real issue I had with answer A and which made me choose D is because of the “most” in A.
Is the reason why the “most” okay because in the stimulus it says “did not consult ANY OTHER MEMBERS”? Thank you.