Q15 - Political leader: In this political dispute

[mshinners]

Question Type:
Sufficient Assumption

Stimulus Breakdown:
Wishful thinking, political leader!

The conclusion is that this leader's side will benefit. Why?
If the other side compromises → Compromise reached
If the other side doesn't → Leader's side benefits

Answer Anticipation:
I cut out the "other side blamed" because it's just a stepping stone to the leader's side benefitting, which is the conclusion. So the important part of the second conditional is that the leader's side benefits. That reaches the conclusion, so there's no gap there.

In the first conditional, however, the outcome is that a compromise is reached. That doesn't necessarily guarantee the leader's side will benefit, so the correct answer will have to connect a compromise to a benefit.

The other area that could lead to a gap is in not considering some possible situations. However, here, the author brings up two situations: compromise, and not compromise. Those are the only two possibilities, so we don't have a gap there.

Correct Answer:
(C)

Answer Choice Analysis:
(A) Out of scope. The argument only cares about there being a compromise, not whether there's a desire to compromise.

(B) Too weak. This answer choice is trying to get you to think that we're always dealing with the second conditional. If that were the case, this would be the answer. However, stating "rarely" doesn't guarantee it won't happen in this case, so this answer is too weak to make the argument valid.

(C) Bingo. Exactly what we predicted. To know that the leader's side will benefit, we need to know a benefit comes from either outcome. The stimulus already tells us the leader's side benefits if there is no compromise. This answer tells us there's a benefit if there is compromise, so all situations are covered.

(D) Out of scope. The argument is about a benefit to the political leader's side, not the opposition's side. This answer would be more relevant if we knew that only one side could benefit from the situation, but that's never established - both sides could come out ahead.

(E) Premise booster. This answer choice pushes us towards the first conditional, but that conditional doesn't guarantee the leader's side will benefit from the move. It boosts that premise, but it doesn't connect it to the conclusion.

Takeaway/Pattern:
This argument structure is showing up more frequently on the LSAT: a conclusion is reached, and two paths that lead to it are brought up. Generally, one of the two will not guarantee you get to the conclusion, and that gap plays into the answer.

The other possibility is that the two paths leading to the outcome don't cover all possibilities, in which case the gap deals with those other possible paths.

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