#9 - Pundit: It is good to have national leaders voted out

[Administrator]

Please post below with any questions!

[brcibake]

Hello,
I was stuck between A and C. I completely ruled out E because my prephrase was new leaders=new action. I thought C was an accurate statement. Why was E better? Thank you

[Adam Tyson]

Being a true statement isn't enough, brcibake - the answer choice has to answer the question that was asked in the stem, and answer C doesn't do that. You are supposed to find the main point here, the author's conclusion, which will be a statement that is supported by other statements in the argument and gives no support to any other statement. That's the first sentence here, which answer E paraphrases nicely.

You can tell that answer C does not restate the main point of the argument, because in the argument that statement is introduced by a pretty obvious PREMISE indicator - "the reason is that". Reasons are premises, evidence, support, so where the author says "the reason for X is Y", then Y is a premise that supports X. Here, X is "vote old leaders out periodically", and Y is
"reforms are generally undertaken early."

Be sure when identifying the main point of an argument that you are finding a statement that GETS all the support and GIVES none. Whether there is a clear indicator for it or not, you should be able to imagine it being introduced with a "therefore" within the structure of the argument, with no change to the overall meaning of that argument. Try that approach with your answer choice, C, and with the correct one, E, and it should become much clearer why E is the better answer in this case.

[mjb514]

I was originally going to pick E, however the end of the answer choice seems inaccurate. It states, "By voting in new leaders," which is never mentioned in the passage. I am having a hard time understanding when new information is allowed in main point questions.

[lsathml]

I was originally going to pick E, however the end of the answer choice seems inaccurate. It states, "By voting in new leaders," which is never mentioned in the passage. I am having a hard time understanding when new information is allowed in main point questions.

I noticed this too on review, but I think as the first sentence states 'it's good to have national leaders voted out' we can safely conclude that this is the product of new leaders being voted in, so it's not really a new piece of information, just not directly stated.

That was my take on it at least!

[James Finch]

Hi guys,

There are certain pieces of outside information that are considered so widely known as to be essentially "common knowledge" and so fair game for the LSAT. English language vocabulary is one clear example, but so is a general understanding of electoral processes (the LSAT is designed for US and Canadian law students), although any unusual quirks would be defined. Within any government, the removal of national leaders (in this case by "voting out") would necessarily lead to their replacement. If the leaders were voted out, then new leaders were presumably "voted in," as the offices would not be simply vacant as a result of an election. (Factually there have have been rare occasions when a deceased person was elected to national office, as they died too close to an election to be replaced on the ballot, but there were and are methods in place to fill the vacant seat).

That all said, in common parlance "voting out" is synonymous with replacing the elected official with someone new, and this question merely asks for a restatement of the conclusion that "it is good to have national leaders voted out of office after a few years." Answer choice (E) is the only restatement of this conclusion; all the other answer choices restate one or another premise. Sometimes even when you have misgivings a process of elimination will lead you to the right answer!

Hope this helps!