LSAT 87, Logical Reasoning II, Q21, LSATHacks

QUESTION TEXT: Columnist: Obviously, money helps one satisfy one's desires…

QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen

CONCLUSION: People become less happy as they become wealthier.

REASONING: Wealth allows desires to be satisfied, but it creates an even greater number of desires that will not be satisfied.

ANALYSIS: There are three components to our argument, namely happiness, wealth, and desires. The argument is saying that as wealth goes up, unsatisfied desires goes up, which makes happiness go down. We are looking for evidence that reinforces this kind of relationship between our components.

___________

1. While this seems like it helps our argument, it actually fails. This is because preventing people from reaching peak happiness is not the same thing as making people unhappy. All this means is that the super wealthy will never be super happy, not that they will be actively unhappy.
2. CORRECT. This still maintains the relationship between our components that we are looking for. When desires go up, happiness goes down. Accordingly, this statement says that when desires go down, happiness goes up. Of course, since more money makes desires go up, it actively makes people unhappier
3. Our argument wants to create the relationship where unsatisfied desires lead to unhappiness and satisfied desires lead to happiness. This answer goes against our argument, thereby weakening it.
4. This implies that people generally want to be wealthier which would conflict with people being unhappier the wealthier they are.
5. Our argument relies on unsatisfied desires being the determinant of happiness. Saying that desires is not the only relevant factor weakens our argument because happiness no longer solely relies on how many unsatisfied desires we have.

Recap: The question begins with “Columnist: Obviously, money helps one satisfy one's desires”. It is a Strengthen question. Learn how to master LSAT Strengthen questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.

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