#17 - Consumer activist: By allowing major airlines to

[reop6780]

What is the conclusion of Industry representative?

I focused on last sentence of his argument and believed it to be the onclusion he made.

however, if i negate each answer choices, i cannot find any answer that disproves the conclusion.

Bases upon the fact that answer C is the correct answer, the real conclusion seems to be implied rather than expressed.

Should I take each person's position into much consideration for these problems?

Is representative trying to explain new policy does not work against ppl's advantages?

I do not know how to use negation on such problem.

[KelseyWoods]

Hi reop6780!

In instances in which you have two speakers, it can sometimes be a little bit tricky to figure out the second speaker's exact conclusion because it often isn't written out explicitly. Usually, the conclusion is in response to the first speaker's conclusion and often the second speaker's conclusion is something along the lines of "the first speaker's conclusion is incorrect." So even if you are only asked about the second speaker, you need to look at the second speaker's argument in context with the first speaker's argument.

Here, the Industry Representative, starts with "On the contrary" and that is essentially his conclusion. To figure out more specifically what his conclusion is, you must look at the Consumer Activist's argument. The Consumer Activist concludes that the deregulation of the airline industry disadvantages everyone who lacks access to large airports. So the Industry Representative's argument ("On the contrary") is the opposite of this: That the deregulation of the airline industry does not disadvantage people who lack access to large airports. The Industry Representative goes onto support his conclusion by describing how the deregulation has resulted in more regional airlines and more flights in and out of most small airports.

Now when you negate answer choice (C) to say that policies which increase the number of flights to consumers DO generally work to the disadvantage of consumers, that directly attacks the Industry Representative's argument that because there are more flights to small airports, consumers are not disadvantaged.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey

[reop6780]

Yes, it makes much more sense!

[jcough346]

I struggled with this question partly because I couldn't identify the question type. Reading the explanation it seems that its an assumption, but what are the specific clue (s) that would make that clear?

And Im fairly certain the following question is an assumption, which I think is interesting that they placed two assumption question back to back on the same passage but for each individual in the argument.

[Adam Tyson]

The conditional nature of the stem in q17 might help you properly label this as an Assumption, jcough, because it sets up the same relationship that we see in all such questions - if the conclusion is true/the argument is good, then the assumption must be true. In this case, the added confusion created by the use of that fan favorite, "unless", might make it harder to parse at first, but once you get through our Unless Equationtm you should be able to see that relationship more clearly.

You're right about q18 also being an Assumption question, and that is interesting! Asking us about assumptions underlying both the first speaker and the response could prove especially troubling for folks unused to thinking of these answers conditionally and then applying that other great tool, the Assumption Negation Techniquetm on any contenders. After two in a row, including a challenging stem, you might be understandably frustrated, and it's no surprise that these are found in the high-teens of the section, where many of the worst traps seem to be laid.

Take another look at the stem for that conditional language and see if it makes sense to you now. Thanks for asking!

[chian9010]

I was confused on answer A).

If we negate answer choice A and it becomes "Small airport has fewer flights now than it before the change in policy..." Doesn't it contradict with the promise industry representative (IR) mentioned? He told us that "there are MORE flights into and out of most small airport".

[Francis O'Rourke]

Hi Chian,

The industry representative claimed that "there are more flights into and out of most small airports now."

Answer choice (A) tells us that the industry representative must assume that no small airport had a decrease in the number of flights. That is, every small airport had an increase in the total number of flights, or the exact same number.

Since the representative made a claim about the majority of small airports, it would not affect her argument to show her that there are some small airports that had a decrease. Her argument is not in any way weakened if one or two airports had a decrease, so long as most had an increase.

In general, you should not look for a answer in weaken questions that directly contradicts a fact stated by the speaker. Similarly, when dealing with assumption questions, you should not look for an answer that merely restates a premise; more often than not this is a sign that you are slightly misreading an answer choice.

Let us know if this helps!

[Joel T]

Hi,

Thanks in advance for your help.

I was choosing between C & D but ultimately I selected D because I thought that it would be a better argument in favour of the Industry Rep.

Looking back, should I have eliminated this choice because there is no previous mention of cost? Or, would it be more reasonable to say that C was the correct choice because it covered issues more broadly which could have included cost?

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Joel,

We need to start here by thinking about our goal. Are we looking for the answer choice that is most helpful to the argument, or the answer choice that is necessary for the argument? The first would indicate a strengthen question, while the second would mean we are looking at an assumption question. Knowing the question type is critical for finding the correct answer, ESPECIALLY in assumption/justify/strengthen questions because they will often give you wrong answer choices that would be correct for a different type.

With that said, let's look at the question stem here. The question says that the industry rep will not provide a compelling answer UNLESS which one of the following is true. Unless is our key indicator word here, and tells us that we are looking for the answer choice that is necessary for the conclusion to follow. That's a classic assumption stem.

To test our answer choices, we aren't looking for something that is helpful, we are looking for something that's needed.

Let's think about a simple conclusion of a potential argument to tease out the difference between something that is needed and something that is helpful: The Good Place is the best comedy currently on television.

Two potential answer choices could be:

1) The Good Place is a funny show.
2) The Good Place was rated the number one comedy by critics, viewers, and industry insiders.

Answer choice 2 would really help our conclusion. If we want to say something is the funniest show currently on television, having high ratings by multiple groups is super helpful. But it's not necessary. Answer choice 1 doesn't help so much. But it is necessary. In order to be the best comedy, The Good Place has to be a comedy.

Ok. Now that we have that example, let's look at our actual LSAT question. The industry rep's conclusion is that the government's new policy does not disadvantage consumers who lack access to a large metropolitan airport. Why? Because of regional airlines, there are now more flights in and out of most small airports than before the change.

Answer choice (D) says that regional airlines charge less to fly a given route than did major airlines. But do we need to know that? Is that required for the new policy to not disadvantage consumers? Of course not. Consumers don't need an extra benefit (lower cost) to the policy. They just need to be no worse off than they were to begin with.

Answer choice (C) on the other hand is required. It says that the increase in extra flights will generally not disadvantage consumers. This IS required. The only support the industry rep offers for his conclusion is that there are now additional flights. If those additional flights work to the detriment of consumers, then we couldn't use it to support the idea that consumers were not disadvantaged.

Hope that helps!
Rachael

[MeliXi]

I had a problem with choice C because I feel like "more flights in and out of most small airports" doesn't exactly mean an increase in the number of flights to which consumers have easy access.

take this example: Mohegan is a city that's not in a large metropolitan area & where prior to deregulation, major airlines operated, but not very profitably (NOT one of the most profitable routes)
prior to deregulation, major airlines were offering 20 flights a day in Mohegan & its regional airport offered 2 flights a day. That would be 22 flights a day in total in Mohegan.
and then after deregulation: major airlines completely abandoned Mohegan because it wasn't very profitable, but regional airlines began offering more flights. let's say they now start offering 10 flights a day, up from the previous 2 a day. this would mean a total of 10 flights a day because there are now 0 flights from major airlines.

Therefore, while there are more flights now out of small airports, there isn't necessarily "an increase in the number of flights." If anything, the actual total number of available flights is less. (22 vs. 10).

This is how I thought about answer choice C. Just because the representative is arguing that small airports are now offering more flights, it doesn't mean an overall increase in the number of available flights.