Counter Premise Indicator question

[MiroSpectre]

In the upload, midway in the paragraph it says "as a result". I took this sentence to be the conclusion given the indicator. I'm just starting out with studying.... why isn't this the conclusion if there's the clear indicator? I got the premise and counter premise, but the conclusion wrong.

[Dave Killoran]

Note: post moved to proper LRB Ch2 Forum.

Hi Micro,

You ask a good question! What this shows is how malleable the English language is, and more importantly, that words that typically are used in a certain way aren't always used that way.

In this case, "as a result" is used in a causal fashion (much more on that is coming a later chapter!), meaning that the four tickets caused the rate increase. But ask yourself, "Is that the conclusion of the argument, that the rates had have been increased?" Based on what comes after, it's pretty clearly not the conclusion of what the author is driving at and instead the author is arguing that there should have been no rate increase.

This brings up something you will see a lot on the LSAT: indicator words are helpful and very often point you in the right direction, but because of how fluid language is, words can be used in different ways and are not always rigidly used in a single indicator sense (one point of proof: some words appear on more than one of the indicator lists). So, use them like general direction signals, but realize that there will be situations where it's not perfect. That gets easier to see as you encounter more LSAT arguments and begin to see the tricks they play with language. Ultimately, it's part of the reason the LSAT is so difficult--they force you to use context to determine what is happening, not just rely on a list of memorized words (a point i make earlier in that chapter iirc).

Thanks!