Let me jump in here to see if I can clear up a number of points of confusion listed above. Namely:
(1) Why is D right and E wrong?
(2) How do intermediate conclusions work (including how to recognize them)?
(3) Can/will conditional reasoning be present in Method/Method—AP questions?
What follows, I hope, is a satisfactory breakdown of each. If so, I'll remove some of the official explanation posts earlier in this thread, and let this single reply serve as substitute.
So, first, to the question itself. Let me break down the component pieces of the stimulus—
without diagrams!, as I genuinely believe they do more harm than good here (both as solution and explanation strategies)—by simply seeing how the various pieces relate to one another in building this argument. Then we can talk about the answer choices.
The stimulus begins with the conclusion: making punishment proportional to the seriousness of the offense while also punishing repeat offenders more harshly than first-time offenders is an unsustainable position. How do I know that's the conclusion? Because everything else in the stimulus is given in an attempt to support it! That is, the rest of what we're told here is stated with the intent of proving that first sentence true.
And, not to over-simplify an admittedly challenging idea (finding conclusions in complex stimuli), that's all there is to it. Seriously. If you can look at each piece of an argument and see that one piece is the reason for all the rest, is what the remaining content is there to bolster, then you have your conclusion. And with any argument-based stimulus on this test, that's ALWAYS Step One! Find your conclusion, then see how the other pieces fit together to support it.
The supporting pieces we have here are as follows:
Sentence 2: a consequence (an "implication") of the position in question, namely that old offenses are
relevant to a new offense's seriousness
Sentence 3: what that implication would mean, namely that if old offenses are relevant, most other
considerations would be too
Sentence 4: why that's a problem, namely you could never apply the original proportionality principle,
because it would become too difficult to determine the seriousness of an offense in the first place
So you can see the architecture of this thing:
A certain behavior/belief has implications/consequences, those implications carry further consequences,
and those consequences make the original behavior impossible to act on or follow
Now, to (D) and (E). We're asked for the role of Sentence 2:
Answer choice (D) says "an allegedly untenable consequence of a view rejected in the argument's overall conclusion." Let's parse that out, piece by piece:
"an alleged consequence" is the "implication" idea, where the author alleges/believes that punishing
repeat offenders more harshly implies that old offenses are relevant to the seriousness of a new offense.
That's the consequence of the belief in the conclusion, that someone would also believe Sentence 2.
"an
untenable consequence" holds because Sentence 2 triggers the chain that leads, eventually, to the
final sentence where the author explains what's wrong with treating old offenses as relevant when
judging new ones: it's a self-defeating position. "Unsustainable" in the author's words (Sentence 1).
"of a view rejected in the argument's overall conclusion" is precisely what we see: in the Sentence 1
conclusion the author rejects the view that repeat offenders (old offenses) should receive more
serious punishment than first-timers
So we have a perfect match!
Answer choice (E), on the other hand, describes Sentence 2 as "a premise offered in support of an intermediate conclusion." So two things we need to verify: is it a premise, and does it support an intermediate conclusion?
The answer to the first part, is it a premise?, is—in my view—arguably "yes." "Premise" is a broad enough category to include Sentence 2: just about anything that's relevant to the conclusion and given in an attempt to support it is a premise.
But what about the intermediate conclusion? Here's where (E) falls apart.
There is no intermediate conclusion based on Sentence 2 in this stimulus. (I'd go one further and say, simply, that there is no intermediate conclusion at all)
And since that leads directly to Point (2) up top, let's transition to a discussion of what intermediate conclusions are and how they work!
An intermediate, sometimes called subsidiary, conclusion is one where a basic premise/fact is used to establish a belief or argument from the author, that is
then used to build the bigger (main) argument. So you need to see two statements of belief, rather than a single belief accompanied by pure facts elsewhere.
And it's that latter form—one opinion, three statements of fact—that this stimulus contains. "This position is unsustainable." Why do you think so? "These three truths: all offenses would be seen as relevant, meaning nearly all considerations period become relevant, meaning determining the seriousness of offenses becomes impossible and your original position implodes." That's a fairly standard argument form, with a series of connected facts leading to a final, and in this case reasonable, opinion.
But it isn't a case of an intermediate conclusion, because the author never presents any lower-tier beliefs from those facts en route to the main idea! That's also why you typically (NOT ALWAYS) see conclusion-indicator words like "thus" and "therefore" prefacing sub-conclusions, as they make it more apparent that the author is having an opinion-based moment. They're also great distractors by the test makers, drawing your attention away from the main point to an intermediate belief underneath it! So always make sure you're relying on more than just a word clue in determining what the main conclusion is
Note too that that's not the same thing as premises that merely connect to one another! Nearly every stimulus on this test—including, notably, conditional-ish ones like this—will have premise connections, while intermediate conclusions are fairly rare. The distinction, again, comes from an author using a premise to form an
opinion, which is then used (often with another premise) to form an additional opinion as the main idea. I realize that sounds subtle and perhaps even arbitrary, but if you study Method of Reasoning and Main Point questions where subsidiary conclusions most frequently occur, their presence (and absence) will grow a great deal more obvious.
Finally, there's a question in this thread about conditional reasoning in Method-type questions, so I'll take a quick second to clarify that. Clearly, conditional reasoning can appear anywhere—premise, conclusion, counter-premise, intermediate conclusion, answser choices...even question stems—on the LSAT, and in virtually any question type, including Method of Reasoning. So I want to be crystal clear that conditional reasoning can most assuredly occur in conclusions for Method/Method—AP questions! What you'll typically find is that the conditionality is given as a believed outcome of the premises, like this:
Prem 1: A
B
Prem 2: B
C
Conclusion: A
C
Obviously that's a simplified construction, but it shows clearly enough how an "if...then" idea could be given as a conclusion based on surrounding, supporting truths. It's not as common in Method as it is in Parallel, Must, Justify, and a few other question types, but it definitely occurs. So be mindful of that.
I know that's a lot to process, but hopefully it does the trick when it comes to the questions I've seen asked! By all means though let me know if there's any lingering confusion and we can give it another look
