LSAT and Law School Admissions Forum

Get expert LSAT preparation and law school admissions advice from PowerScore Test Preparation.

 Administrator
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 8916
  • Joined: Feb 02, 2011
|
#90626
Complete Question Explanation

Strengthen, Principle. The correct answer choice is (A).

With every Strengthen question, it is crucial to identify the author's main conclusion. In this stimulus, it's the first sentence: the park ranger believes it is unfair to cite people for fishing in the newly restricted areas. They defend this position by stating that people are probably unaware of the changes in regulations, since many rangers themselves have not yet been informed of them. The ranger then states that no more than a warning should be issued until a real effort is made to publicize the new restrictions.

As reasonable as the park ranger's argument is, the question of awareness is not airtight. Someone could respond by saying the law is the law, and should be enforced whether a violator is aware of the law or not. To strengthen this argument, we should look for an answer choice that says that a lack of awareness is an acceptable defense against receiving a citation.

Answer choice (A): This is the correct answer choice. Yes! Right at the top, we get an answer choice that resolves the issue we saw with with the park ranger's argument.

Answer choice (B): This is an inherent premise in the author's argument, but doesn't strengthen it.

Answer choice (C): Even if we accept this as true, it doesn't strengthen the park ranger's argument against issuing citations because the objection we saw earlier still stands. Whether the public knows less, as much as, or more than law enforcement officials do, it doesn't matter: the law is the law, and any violator should be cited. Remember the conclusion of the argument; the best answer is likely going to mention the citation explicitly as that was what the author's conclusion was about.

Answer choice (D): Seems reasonable, but this doesn't strengthen the author's argument. We need a way to resolve the awareness objection, and this doesn't cut it.

Answer choice (E): Even if this was true, the awareness objection still stands.
User avatar
 Trying My Best
  • Posts: 6
  • Joined: Jan 05, 2022
|
#93324
I cannot come up with a reason why letter C is incorrect because the stimulus states "They probably are unaware of the changes in regulations, since even many of us who are supposed to enforce these changes have not yet been informed of them." I can make excuses for why C is incorrect, but I don't actually see why this is 100% wrong. Can someone please help?
 Robert Carroll
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 1787
  • Joined: Dec 06, 2013
|
#93386
Trying My Best,

The conclusion is the first sentence. So think: how does answer choice (C) make it more likely that it's unfair to cite people? It does nothing for that - it doesn't talk about unfairness at all, and simply makes it sometimes ok not to know something. Whether it's fair or unfair to be cited for something you don't know anything about isn't discussed by answer choice (C). So that accomplishes nothing. Focus on the conclusion!

Robert Carroll
User avatar
 shanhickey
  • Posts: 21
  • Joined: Apr 11, 2022
|
#95288
This may seem like an obvious question, but I did have a hard time with this one. I went back and forth between A and C for quite a bit because I didn't know if the first or last sentence was the argument. How can I approach this question to be confident that the first sentence is the actual argument that needs strengthening? I feel like it would've quickly helped me rule C out.
 Robert Carroll
PowerScore Staff
  • PowerScore Staff
  • Posts: 1787
  • Joined: Dec 06, 2013
|
#95311
shanhickey,

To identify the conclusion of an argument, ask yourself what the author wants to prove. The first sentence meets that standard.

Robert Carroll

Get the most out of your LSAT Prep Plus subscription.

Analyze and track your performance with our Testing and Analytics Package.