LSAT 158 | Section 1 | Reading Comprehension: Q22

RC Question 22 Explanation

DISCUSSION: To understand the context of a line, you must read around it. Burying responsibility is mentioned in the second line of paragraph 4. The first line of paragraph 4 says “However, this approach….misguided”. “This approach” refers to paragraph 3. So we get:

• Paragraph 3: charge individual officers!
• Paragraph 4: this won’t work, because it is hard to pinpoint which officers are responsible (i.e. responsibility gets buried)

So the purpose of this line is to show that paragraph 3’s approach is wrong.

___________

1. The line introducing scapegoats starts with “Another problem….” So scapegoats are an additional, unrelated problem. The fact that one sentence comes after another doesn’t mean they are logically linked! In fact, “another” tells us they aren’t linked. Even without a scapegoat it is hard to pinpoint the real wrong-doers.
2. This answer begins with “to highlight the reasons why”. This is very important and you mustn’t gloss over it. That quote means the highlighted statement is the reasoning, and the rest of the answer choice is the conclusion.
    
   A lot of the LSAT comes down to doing simple rearrangement of words. The LSAT writers take a simple, stupid thing, and make it complicated and make it sound smart. Then you have to do the word of deciphering it to see that it’s really dumb.
    
   Here, we know the highlighted sentence is the reasoning, and this answer is the conclusion (according to this answer choice). So let’s look at them in that order and evaluate the argument:
    
   Reasoning: Within a corporation, complex hierarchies make it hard to tell which individual is responsible
    
   Conclusion: So, we should charge individual executives, they are responsive to deterrence?!?!?!
    
   This doesn’t make any sense. If it’s hard to identify who is responsible, then it is hard to correctly prosecute individual executives and they won’t be responsive to deterrence. Properly understood, this is an enormously stupid answer. The LSAT goes to great lengths to make stupid things seem smart.
3. This one is tempting. Burying responsibility in hierarchies might seem like “unfairness” however, just because responsibility is buried doesn’t mean that the people who are scapegoated are “unfairly punished”. It could be that they’re not the primary source of wrongdoing, but still played a part. In any case, the author didn’t raise unfairness as an objection!
4. CORRECT. Some legal theorists say that individuals within corporations should be held culpable. The author counters this by saying that corporations might try to bury the blame so that no one can be responsible. This makes the recommendation impractical.
5. The author doesn’t criticize the critics’ understanding of what criminal liability is. It would be very weird if the critics were so confused that they didn’t even know the basics of criminal law.