#9 - Since anyone who supports the new tax plan has no

[lsatopocalypse]

Nikki,

Sorry for such a late response, but I wanted to give myself time to forget about this question before revisiting it. With that said, I came back to it today and I was able to nail the right answer, so I think finally understand.
thanks for your help

[mo_wan]

This question I was super confused if you could explain why all the answers choices that'd be great.

I choose b) don't understand why that's wrong. And don't really see why d) is right.

I went back and diagrammed it

CE ---->~STP----> UE
So the link between Not Supporting Tax Plan and understanding economics is his assumption. But I really still don't the common sense explaination behind this.

[Jennifer Janowsky]

Mo,

Here's a quote from earlier in the thread explaining in simple terms the issue with each answer choice:

You're right that A just reiterates the stimulus. B is just the opposite of the conclusion, but doesn't explain anything. C could be true, but is irrelevant to the conclusion, which is talking about people who COULD be elected. E is accurate reasoning, but again is irrelevant to the conclusion.

That leaves us with D. The flaw in the conclusion is that it assumes that just because you do not support the new tax plan, and therefore have a chance of being elected, means you also MUST understand economics. That is a mistaken reversal of the second premise I diagrammed at the top. It is possible that someone who doesn't support the new tax plan also does not truly understand economics, but could still have a chance at being elected.

Let me know if you still need help! This is a tricky question and I'd be happy to work with you on it.

[mo_wan]

Hi Jen, thanks for the reply.

When I first read this question, the first flaw that came to my head was that we don't know anything about people who don't understand economics so couldn't it be that they have no chance. In that sense I'm not sure why it's incorrect, like on a common sense basis. Could you provide me with a life example?

I reworked this question and diagrammed

CE ---> ~ STP (missing link) TUE ----> ~STP
So in that sense I assumed whatever would be the missing link and negated the necessary condition.

You mentioned it's the opposite of the conclusion.

C: CE ----> TUE
Answer B:. TUE ----> ~ CE
Is this what you meant?

A) I understand restates the premise, so that's gone
C) He never really said this
E) not sure why this is incorrect either

Mo,

Here's a quote from earlier in the thread explaining in simple terms the issue with each answer choice:

You're right that A just reiterates the stimulus. B is just the opposite of the conclusion, but doesn't explain anything. C could be true, but is irrelevant to the conclusion, which is talking about people who COULD be elected. E is accurate reasoning, but again is irrelevant to the conclusion.

That leaves us with D. The flaw in the conclusion is that it assumes that just because you do not support the new tax plan, and therefore have a chance of being elected, means you also MUST understand economics. That is a mistaken reversal of the second premise I diagrammed at the top. It is possible that someone who doesn't support the new tax plan also does not truly understand economics, but could still have a chance at being elected.

Let me know if you still need help! This is a tricky question and I'd be happy to work with you on it.

[Jonathan Evans]

Hi, Mo_Wan!

Let's do a quick recap of the analysis to be certain we're parsing this stimulus correctly:

1. If you support the tax plan, then no chance of election.
   • STP CE
     Contrapositive: CE STP
2. If you get economics, then you don't support the plan.
   • TUE STP
     Contrapositive: STP TUE
3. Conclusion: If you've got a shot at being elected, then you truly understand economics.
   • CE TUE
     Contrapositive: TUE CE

From the premises, what connections can we make? Not many!

• CE STP
  TUE STP
  • This means that people who truly understand economics don't support the tax plan. Since these people don't support the tax plan, they have met a necessary condition to have a chance at being elected. In other words, it is possible that people who truly understand economics could have a chance at being elected, but we don't know for sure whether they have a chance at being elected! We know these people who truly understand economics might have a chance or they might not have a chance.
• STP CE
  STP TUE
  • This means that if someone supports the tax plan, we know two things: (1) this person doesn't truly understand economics and (2) this person has no chance of being elected. Since both conditionals above share a sufficient condition, we could combine them into one conditional: STP CE & TUE

However, notice that there's no way using the above information that we could arrive at the conclusion or its contrapositive. Using the premises, there's no way we could start with "chance of being elected" and end up at "truly understands economics" (CE TUE) or start with "doesn't understand economics" and end up at "no chance of being elected" (TUE CE).

Let's see if we can determine where the connection broke down.

• From the conclusion that CE TUE it seems as thought the author is trying to make the following erroneous connection: *CE STP TUE*
  
  This is based on the mistaken reversal *STP TUE*. The premises state TUE STP. The correct idea is that if you truly understand economics, then you don't support the tax plan. The incorrect idea is that *if you don't support the tax plan, then you truly understand economics.* How could we describe this error? How could we say that *STP TUE* is incorrect. The author thinks that not supporting the tax plan is sufficient to know that you truly understand economics. This is a mistaken reversal. The author ignores the possibility that there could be people who do not support the tax plan who do not truly understand economics. This is what's in answer choice (D). This statement in answer choice (D) explains how not supporting the tax plan is not sufficient to establish that you truly understand economics.

The reason why answer choice (E) is wrong is that it does not describe the flaw we have identified in our analysis. Answer choice (E) describes the following flawed assumption: "People who have no chance of being elected must truly understand economics" (CE TUE)

However, the author never makes this assumption. This connection doesn't come up. So while answer choice (E) describes a mistaken conditional statement, the problem is that it describes a mistake that the author doesn't make. Since we have to identify the flaw in the author's reasoning, and this is not a flaw in the author's reasoning, this cannot be the correct answer.

I hope this helps!

[LSATscrub]

My thinking on this question was that that the author was making a mistaken negation of the first premise, which I thought (C) undermined. Where am I going wrong in this analysis?

[Adam Tyson]

The problem with that analysis, LSATscrub, is that "some do not" does not negate "some do". In this case, the author is trying to show that only people who understand economics have a chance, but that doesn't mean that they ALL do, just that they are the only ones who do. So, some people with that understanding are the ONLY ones who have a chance. Answer C tells us that there are also some people in that group who don't stand a chance, and that's fine - some do and some don't. Those statements are compatible with each other, like "some people like anchovy pizza and some do not". (The ones that do not are wrong, but that's a topic for another thread)

Your analysis should instead start with a focus on the conclusion - the author thinks that "only someone who truly understands economics" has a shot at getting elected. That language puts "truly understand economics" to the right of a conditional arrow - it's a necessary condition. Put another way, if you stand a chance, THEN you have that understanding. The flaw, then, is failing to recognize that the alleged necessary condition may not actually be necessary. Maybe someone has a chance (the supposed sufficient condition) that doesn't have that understanding (the purported necessary condition). Look for an answer about someone who has a chance but does NOT understand! Only answer D provides that relationship.

[ali124]

Dear Powerscore,

I have reviewed the discussion so far but still have a burning question.
Doesn't answer choice (D) conflict with the second premise? Because if I take a contrapositive of answer choice (D):
Support New Tax Plan (SNTP) --> Understand economics (UE)

it becomes,
(UE) --> (SNTP).

Would this contradict premise 2 that says:

(UE) --> (SNTP)?

If so, how can (D) still be a valid answer choice? I had crossed off (D) for this reason, and (even understanding why all the other choices are wrong), I still don't understand how (D) can be a possibility that is compatible with premise 2.

Thank you so much for your help.
Ali

[James Finch]

Hi Ali,

The key to this question is understanding the Mistaken Reversal being made by the stimulus. We have two conditional statements for premises:

SNTP E

contrapositive:

E SNTP

and

UE SNTP

contrapositive:

SNTP UE

This means we can't logically tie them together, as we the common condition, SNTP, is a sufficient one for both premises. This doesn't stop the conclusion though, as it uses the chain:

E SNTP UE, which it shortens to just E UE

This is a Mistaken Reversal of our second premise, as the actual diagram should be UE SNTP, which means that the possibility that it's ignoring is that

SNTP UE

As SNTP is actually a necessary condition, not a sufficient one, and doesn't tell us anything about whether someone understands economics or not.

Hope this clears things up!

[ali124]

Thank you so much! I just noticed the "some people" part in the question stem, and that explanation clarifies everything.