#9 - Alice: In democracies, politicians garner support by

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Point at Issue. The correct answer choice is (B)

In this dialogue, Alice asserts that elections lead politicians to try to distinguish themselves from the competition, leading to wildly fluctuating policies. Elwell disagrees, asserting that views get softened after an election (so policies don't change as much as we might otherwise think). The point at issue here is whether or not the changing rhetoric regarding policy is accompanied by actual changes to policy post-election.

Answer choice (A): Alice specifically asserts this point, but Elwell does not refute it—in fact, Elwell implicitly concedes to the point by referring to the election rhetoric.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice, and the one which perfectly reflects the point of contention in the stimulus. Alice asserts that there are major changes to basic policy, and Elwell disagrees, holding that actual policy doesn't changes as much as pre-election rhetoric would suggest.

Answer choice (C): Elwell certainly agrees with this assertion, but Alice would not necessarily disagree, so this answer choice fails the Agree/Disagree test.

Answer choice (D): Neither speaker comments on this issue.

Answer choice (E): While Elwell asserts that democracies require coalition, that is not the same as saying that coalitions tend to lead to democracies (this would be a mistaken reversal). Regardless, Alice does not comment at all on this issue, so this answer choice is incorrect.

[lsatstudier]

Hi,

I think I understand why the answer is B, but would you have any advice on how to get to the point at issue quickly? I find these questions take me awhile, and in this particular question, I went through all of my answer choices thinking none of the answers were best.

Any advice? Thank you so much for all your help!

[Adam Tyson]

Good question, Studier, especially as there typically aren't that many of these Point at Issue questions and so some students often overlook them in their preparation.

The first step is the same as always in LR, and that's prephrasing. Decide what you think the point at issue is, in your own words. Ask yourself what these two folks disagree about. In this case that might be something like "they disagree about how big the changes are between opposing parties".

Next, sort your answers into losers and contenders. If you hate an answer, because you know that it is not something these two disagree about, toss it out - it's a loser. Everything else is a contender, including any answer that you aren't sure about. If you cannot toss it out with confidence, you must hang onto it, at least until something better comes along.

Finally, if you have more than one contender, try this test: ask yourself what the first speaker would say, based solely on the text in their argument. No assumptions about what they might think! Just use their words. Would they say yes or no? True or false? All or none? Now, ask yourself what the second speaker would say, again based solely on the text. Is their answer the opposite of the first speaker's answer? If it is, you have your winner. If not, or if you aren't sure what one of the speakers would say, it's a loser.

Remember, no outside info, just the text! Be sure you have clear evidence that one says yes and the other says no, one says true and the other says false, etc. The answer that passes that test will be your credited response.

Go give that a try!