LSAT 148 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q8

LR Question 8 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Politician: Some cities have reversed the decay of…

QUESTION TYPE: Principle – Justify

CONCLUSION: Tax incentives for renovation are bad.

REASONING: Only rich people could afford to restore buildings. Now that rents and taxes have gone up in revitalized areas, earlier, poorer residents had to leave. The legislation had been intended to help these long term residents.

ANALYSIS: This is a common critique of gentrification. Brooklyn, for example, doesn’t have more people living in it now – it just has different, richer people.

This is a principle question, so we need to morally justify the politician’s argument. So, for example, we could say “a policy is bad if it displaces people” or “a policy is bad if it fails to help those it was intended to help”. Something like that.

I wrote the above before looking at the answers. Now that I have looked, I see the question went in a slightly different direction. But I still think it’s valuable to prephrase, and to show you what I prephrased. You’ll notice that both of my prephrases did at least take into account results, so making prephrases can still help even if you miss.

___________

1. CORRECT. The results of this legislation were bad for those it was intended to help. So this principle strengthens the politician’s argument.
    
   Note that this is very minimal support. But in many cases people do unknowingly consider good intentions more than results, so it helps to explicitly state this.
2. The politician didn’t say why the law was passed. The wealthy benefitted, but they may not have been the ones lobbying for the law.
3. The tax laws do apply equally to all individuals. The problem is that only the well-off can afford to take advantage of the tax incentives.
4. This legislation did benefit the well-off, so this principle doesn’t apply.
5. This weakens the politician’s argument, since this law did benefit the well-to-do.

Recap: The question begins with “Politician: Some cities have reversed the decay”. It is a Principle – Justify question. To practice more Principle – Justify questions, have a look at the LSAT Questions by Type page.