#22 - Concept Reference, Strengthen

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

The correct answer choice is (C).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):


This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[Perry6921]

I chose answer choice D. I felt that C was too passive/neutral as a reason to end something that was in effect. Had it said that it would would "decrease their opportunities" instead of "would not enhance their opportunities" it would strengthen the author's view of politicians. Why would "not enhancing" make them actively end enrollment, they could have kept it as is.
answer D on the other hand seemed to provide reasoning why they actually had to actively end enrollment (for nothing else but to serve their own agenda).

Please explain what I am missing.

Thanks!

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi Perry,

I agree with you that changing "would not enhance" to "decrease" would make answer (C) a lot stronger.

We have to look again at answer choice (D). This statement tells us that politicians felt that BIA staff and budget had grown too large. However lines 43 - 51 tell us that politicians favor the exact opposite. This answer choice actually weakens the author's view on politicians. Instead of being opportunistic and slightly controlling as the author implies, answer choice (D) indicates that politicians want a smaller role for government.

[Perry6921]

Thank you!

So my answer choice contradicted the premise = According to politicians there is no such thing as a bureaucratic budget becoming too large.

[edacyu]

I'm struggling with Question 22 on the February 1993 test in the Lesson 6 RC homework.

The question reads: Which one of the following statements concerning the reason for the end of allotment, if true, would provide the most support for the author's view of politicians?

I originally answered C, the correct answer, but changed it after thinking that the correct answer should actually be the opposite — that politicians believed allotment's continuation would (not would not) enhance their opportunities to exercise patronage, as shown in lines 48-51.

Could someone help me with why I appear to interpreting this answer in the opposite way it's intended?

Thanks!

[Alex Bodaken]

Edacyu,

Thanks for the question! Let's start with the question stem, which reads:

"Which one of the following statements concerning the reason for the end of allotment, if true, would provide the most support for the author's view of politicians?"

In order to know which answer choice supports it, we need to know the author's view of politicians. Unsurprisingly, given how the LSAT often treats politicians and the fact that it is a diversity passage (so the people in opposition to the diverse group are likely to characterized unfavorably), the author does not care for politicians. She writes:

"It has been convincingly demonstrated that bureaucrats (45) seek to maximize the size of their staffs and their budgets in order to compensate for the lack of other sources of fulfillment, such as power and prestige. Additionally, politicians tend to favor the growth of governmental bureaucracy because such (50) growth provides increased opportunity for the exercise of political patronage."

From this, we can conclude the author sees politicians as in favor of bureaucracy and actions that increase the opportunity to extend patronage. So we are looking for an answer that supports that view of politicians.

The answer choices give possible explanations for why the allotment was ended - the passage itself doesn't say why it was ended (it simply notes it was ended in 1934 on line 54). We should generally be looking for an answer that says that the reason they did it was not selfless, or to help the Native Americans, but for their own benefit, because this comports with the author's view of politicians. Of the available answer choices, choice (C) is the only one that fits the bill: if it is true that politicians believed that the allotment's continuation would not enhance their opportunities for patronage, then it makes sense they ended it - it stopped serving their self-serving needs! All of the other answer choices represent selfless choices that make the politicians look more sympathetic - which therefore conflict with the author's negative view of politicians.

Hope this helps!

AB

[edacyu]

Thank you so much! It looks like I misread the stem to indicate the view of politicians rather than the view of the author.