LSAT 148 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q18

LR Question 18 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Tax reformer: The proposed tax reform legislation is…

QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption

CONCLUSION: The legislation is well framed.

REASONING: The left says the tax legislation is too vague, the right says it is too specific. A single statement can’t be both too specific and too vague.

ANALYSIS: This author assumes neither of the two groups are wrong. It’s possible that either the left or the right are actually correct in their assessment.

The author also ignores that a large tax bill can have statements that are too specific and also statements that are too vague. For example, imagine a tax bill that said “Everyone named Steve needs to pay a lot more tax money”. That law is too highly specific towards “Steve”, and not specific enough about how much extra money they owe.

The author only said that “one and the same statement” can’t be both too vague and too specific. But a tax bill is composed of many statements.

___________

1. So? The rareness of a criticism doesn’t affect whether those criticisms are correct or not.
2. The tax reformer actually wasn’t debating the benefits of the bill. They were just talking about how it was framed: vague or specific.
3. So? If a centrist group said “too vague”, that wouldn’t change the argument. The author’s point was that “vague” and “specific” can’t both be right about a single statement.
4. This doesn’t matter. Who cares about the intent of the bill? You can intend to be vague, but accidentally speak clearly, or vice-versa.
5. CORRECT. If this is true, then the overall tax bill as a whole could be both too vague and too specific.

Recap: The question begins with “Tax reformer: The proposed tax reform legislation”. It is a Necessary Assumption question. To practice more Necessary Assumption questions, have a look at the LSAT Questions by Type page.