LSAT 146 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q4

LR Question 4 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: The mayor has been accused of taking a bribe based on…

QUESTION TYPE: Weaken

CONCLUSION: The mayor says he is not guilty of taking a bribe.

REASONING: It’s true that a consultant with city business paid for improvements to the mayor’s house. But, the mayor claims that he paid every bill that he [the mayor] was presented with.

ANALYSIS: This is a comically bad argument. Here are the facts:

1. The mayor paid every bill he was given
2. At least some of the bills for the house were given to the consultant, not to the mayor

So clearly, the consultant gave the mayor a benefit. The question is, did the mayor know that the consultant got those bills? Probably….but we can weaken the mayor’s argument by showing he did in fact know.

___________

1. This answer just tries to confuse you by accusing the consultant of taking bribes as well as giving them. But we’re only concerned with whether the mayor took bribes, not whether the consultant is a shady character.
2. CORRECT. Indeed. If the mayor knew that bills were being presented to the consultant, then the mayor would have known that he [the mayor] was effectively getting payments from the consultant.
3. You might have picked this because you thought it made the situation look shady. But the mayor isn’t accused of general shadiness. He’s accused of taking a bribe from the consultant. That’s what we’re trying to prove.
4. So? We don’t know what proportion of bills the mayor paid. If he paid 85% of the bills for expensive materials and labor, then he may not have known the consultant paid the other 15%.
5. This adds nothing: you would already expect this to be true. Why would a consultant spend, say, $10,000,000 on the mayor’s house to get a $1,000,000 contract? It would make no sense.