#24 - Tariffs on particular products tend to protect the

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption. The correct answer choice is (A).

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

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C):

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

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

[mpoulson]

Hello,

I don't understand why the answer is A to this question. I don't see how this statement is a necessary assumption for the argument in stimulus. Why should it matter what the supporters of tariffs vote for or how they vote when they are only a small percentage of the voting populous. Please explain. Thank you.

- Micah

[Nikki Siclunov]

Hi Micah,

Please provide a detailed breakdown of how you understood the argument. At the very least, we expect to see evidence that you were able to:

• Deconstruct the stimulus into premises/conclusion.
• Understand whether the conclusion logically follows from the premises, and if not - why not?
• Correctly identify the type of question in the stem.
• Prephrase an answer to that question. (Don't be afraid if your prephrase was off - we still need to see what it was).
• Defend your choice of (incorrect) answer choice.

The more you tell us about your method of approach, the better we can help you figure it out.

Thanks!

[mpoulson]

Hello,

The real problem I had with this question is that I have trouble understanding what A is actually saying. If you could articulate what it means then I think I would understand why it's necessary for the argument through the assumption negation test. Nevertheless, The conclusion in the stimulus is saying that politicians are more likely to be reelected if they voted against the tariffs. The reason I originally thought the answer was E is that if people don't know that tariffs are bad then that gives people less incentive to vote for or against a politician based on their stance on this issue and subsequently allows for politicians to support tariffs while also garnering votes. Yet, since this is wrong I know that this isn't essential to the argument and might just merely help it. So I was hoping for the clarification of A and an clear explanation of why its imperative to the argument. I hope this is the insight you needed. Thank you.

Micah

[emilysnoddon]

I am having a hard time understanding why A is the correct answer. Using the assumption negation technique I see why this answer might be correct because if supporters were not more likely than opponents to base their vote for a politician's stand on the issue, then who is to say the politicians would be more likely to be re-elected. However, what confused me is the fact that its saying more likely than opponents. I dont see what the opponents have to do with it since it says MOST people oppose such tarriffs. When I eliminate that section and read it just as supporters are likely to base their vote for a politician on the politicians stand on this issue -- that makes complete sense to me but I'm not sure how the presence of comparing the supporters to the opponents changes this.

Any insight would be much appreciated.

Thank you!

Emily

[Shannon Parker]

Hi all-

This question is an example of an easy question, made to look incredibly tricky through the use of language. To break it down the author gives us two premises. A) Tariffs on particular products tend to protect the small percentage of the population that works in industries that makes those products while hurting everyone else. B) Most people oppose such tariffs. The author then gives us the conclusion, C) politicians would be more likely to get reelected if they voted against these tariffs.

Let's leave answer choice (A) aside for now.

(B) Politicians always vote according to what is most likely to get them reelected. This answer choice doesn't affect the reasoning in anyway, it simply asserts that politicians act out the conclusion. <---> (indicating that this neither supports nor contradicts the reasoning)

(C)Politicians should support only general tariffs, since such tariffs would be more widely popular with voters than tariffs on particular products. Again this answer choice doesn't affect the reasoning in any way.

(D) Politicians should never support measures that favor only a small percentage of the population. This one is kinda tricky but there are two keys to crossing this one off, it says that politicians should never support, which is absolute language not used anywhere in the stimulus,rather the stimulus only talks about likelihood of reelection, and it says "that favor" which means helps instead of "favored by" which would mean supported by.

(E) People who would be hurt by tariffs generally know that they would be hurt by them. This one is attractive since in the real world we might assume that people who don't know they are harmful would not vote against them, but in the LSAT world we take what is written in the stimulus as granted, and the stimulus states that most people oppose such tariffs, regardless of what they actually do or do not know about them.

This leaves us with answer choice (A). Supporters of tariffs on particular products are not significantly more likely than opponents to base their vote for a politician on the politician's stand on the this issue. This is saying that the argument relies on the assumption that the small portion of people who support these tariffs are not significantly more likely than those people who oppose such tariffs to base their vote on the tariffs.
Using the assumption negation technique we can see that if supporters of tariffs are significantly more likely than opposers to base their vote on this issue, then there is a greater likelihood of reelection if the politician votes in favor of the tariff.

Here is an example.

We have a politician with 10 constituents. There is a tariff that helps 4 people and hurts 6. The politician voted for the tariff. The four people who are helped by the Tariff vote to reelect the politician based on her support of the Tariff. Two of the people who are hurt by the Tariff were in the military and the politician served on the veterans council so they vote to reelect her. One of the people hurt by the Tariff is a teacher, and the politician has strongly supported the teachers union, so he votes for her. Only three of the people hurt by the Tariff care more about it than the other issues, and therefore vote against the politician. The politician is thereby reelected.

The author's logic rests on the notion that everyone cares equally about this issue, in which case the hypothetical would come out 6-4, against reelection.

I hope this helps clear it up. Let me know if there are any more questions.

-Shannon

[mpoulson]

Hello,

I struggled with this question between A and E. E was ultimately more attractive to me because it seemed that if people weren't aware they were going to be hurt by them then the politicians voting agains them wouldn't be as affected by their stance on tariffs. However, I do recognise that if A is not true then again politicians wouldn't have to be worried about their stance on tariffs. Can you articulate why E is not a good answer? Thank you.

- Micah

[mpoulson]

I guess the fact that polls show that most people oppose tariffs would indicate that it doesn't matter if people know that they would be hurt by them or not?

[Jonathan Evans]

MPaulson, great job. You hit the nail on the head with the second post. So what if they don't know whether tariffs will hurt them? We've already established that most people oppose them, irrespective of their reasons. It could still be possible that politicians are more likely to be reelected if they voted against these tariffs. This answer fails the Negation Test. Well done.

[alexmcc]

I made a hypothetical situation for this question that I thought knocked A out as a contender. If 100 people live in the district and 2 out of 98 people are "for" the tariffs, then if the For-Tariff group was 100% likely to vote in regards to the politician's stand on tariffs, while the Against-Tariff group were only 10% likely to base their vote as same, then it wouldn't really matter whether or not people were significantly more or less likely to vote who supported the tariffs than those who did not. 2 votes for vs. the 9.8 votes against.

..Unless the word "significantly" is the word I overlooked, which maybe shows the above situation is impossible? Or maybe I misunderstood the conclusion that "politicians would be more LIKELY to be reelected if..." not that "politicians would simply GET reelected if..."