#19 - How do the airlines expect to prevent commercial plane

[Dancingbambarina]

I understand I answered my own question. My apologies.

May you please just provide clarification as to how this conditional differs to other conditionals on the test. Is it because it refers specifically to assumptions? So we would treat an argument the Author poses within the actual stimulus like this as well if we are asked to assess the argument the Author addresses. Otherwise this concept indicated on the sidebar ($5 being necessary etc.) is not relevant when deaing with regular conditionals, right?

Thanks so much

[Luke Haqq]

Hi Dancingbambarina!

I'm not fully sure that I understand your question, but I can speak to this specific question and how it relates to others on the LSAT. Most centrally, this is an assumption question. That means the correct answer choice will be a necessary assumption on which the conclusion of the argument depends. You can tell that this is an assumption question because of the language asking about "an assumption upon which the argument depends" in the question stem.

One thing you can do on an assumption question is apply the Assumption Negation technique. You wouldn't use that tool on every answer choice but rather it's more a way to confirm that you're selecting the right one if you have it narrowed down to one or two. The Assumption Negation technique involves negating an answer choice and then plugging it into the stimulus. If it would weaken/make the argument fall apart, that confirms that it's the correct answer.

Here, negated, answer choice (D) would be "Lack of actual flying time is [not] an important contributor to pilot error in commercial plane crashes." If lack of actual flying time is not important, then it doesn't follow that the airlines needs to rethink its training approach. Perhaps that approach is fine even if it doesn't have actual flying time. Given that its negation makes the argument no longer work, that confirms that (D) is an assumption on which the argument depends.

Apologies if that doesn't address your question--if not, please feel free to embellish on the issue you're encountering and we'll be happy to address it!