LSAT Discussion Forum

Is B wrong because of the differences in quantity and scope between what the city leader says-- "an automobile manufacturer"-- and what answer choice B says-- "manufacturing companies"? I am having trouble eliminating B.

Thanks,
Alex

Alex,

This is a must be true question, so the right answer choice should be supported by the stimulus.

Looking at (B), that choice makes a claim about manufacturing plants in general.

Because the stimulus only talked about one kind of manufacturing plant, choice (B) is unsupported. For MBT questions, the right choice should not go beyond the scope of the information presented in the stimulus. You are correct in your reason for eliminating (B).

You can also point out that the author of the stimulus appears to have considered the jobs that one specific plant will provide, whereas there is no indication that is a criteria in (B). I don't feel you need to do that, because it is just a more specific version of the same reason to eliminate the choice.

Hi Powerscore! All I wanted to know is that had this been a must be true question, what would the correct answer choice be?

nihals,

If this were a Must Be True question, no answer would be correct. LSAC would not have made this a Must Be True question without providing some answer that definitely is true. As pointed out earlier in this thread, the stimulus doesn't quite prove that the new tourism plan is reasonable. It gives information that strongly supports that claim - if a more expensive plan with similar benefits is reasonable, it seems all the more likely that the tourism plan is reasonable, but we don't have all the facts to prove that.

Changing a question to Must Be True will never make other answers correct - if something had to be true, it would already have been the (the one!) correct answer for a Most Strongly Supported question.

Robert Carroll

[quote="Jonathan Evans"]
Given that the number of jobs created is the ultimate metric by which we measure whether a plan is reasonable, suppose the automobile plant costs

Where in the stimulus does it indicate that the # of jobs created is the metric by which the author measures whether a plan is reasonable? Is this implied? Thank you!

Hi ash,

Great question, and the short answer is that it's implied rather than explicitly stated. We're drawing the importance of that job-creation metric from two things in the stimulus. First, it's one of the two benefits of the tourism plan the author lists in the first sentence (in addition to a substantial increase in tourism spending), and it's the "end point" of the causal chain the author lists in that sentence. If the author were primarily concerned with tourism spending, there would be no need to list the creation of jobs as a second consequence. Second, the reasonability criterion in the second sentence focuses on the building of an automobile manufacturing plant, and the only benefit of that action is listed in the first sentence, where the author says there would be jobs created by such a plant. Thus, we can infer that the creation of jobs is the primary metric the author has in mind in the stimulus.

I hope this helps!

Jeremy