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#22650
Question #1: Assumption. The correct answer choice is (B).

The pundit concludes that the city should not have sold the rights to assess and collect parking fees to a private company. Why? Because the company jacked up the fees and made a profit, which could have gone to the city instead. This line of reasoning makes sense only if we assume that the city would have been able to make a similar amount of money, presumably by raising – and then collecting – the parking fees themselves. This prephrase immediately reveals answer choice (B) to be correct.

Answer choice (A): Whether other companies would have been wiling to purchase the rights is irrelevant to the conclusion, because the pundit is not arguing that other companies could have profited from such a purchase. The issue is whether the city could have profited.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice
, as it agrees with our prephrase. If this answer is troubling you, use the Assumption Negation Technique and ask yourself if the following statement would undermine the argument:
The city could not have raised parking fees even if it hadn’t sold the rights.
Unless the city could do what the private company did, it is highly unlikely that it would have made a similar profit. Since the logical opposite of answer choice (B) weakens the pundit’s argument, answer choice (B) is an assumption upon which the argument depends.

Answer choice (C): This answer choice may seem attractive if you mistook the Assumption question stem for a Justify or a Strengthen stem. This is because answer choice (C) directly strengthens the idea that the city should have handled the assessment and collection of parking fees. Nevertheless, answer choice (C) is not necessary for the conclusion to be true. For one thing, it contains a broad rule or a principle (“should always be handled”), whose language is way too strong to qualify as an implicit premise for the conclusion. When in doubt, apply the Assumption Negation Technique and ask yourself if the following statement would undermine the argument:
Municipal functions like assessing and collecting parking fees should not always be handled directly by the municipality in question.
How would the pundit respond to this claim? Just because the handling of municipal functions should sometimes left to other (presumably private) entities does not mean that this would have been the best course of action in this particular case. The logical opposite of answer choice (C) certainly does not deal a fatal blow to the pundit’s argument, which is proof that answer choice (C) is not necessary for that argument to be logically valid.

Answer choice (D): This answer choice weakens the argument by suggesting that the city would need to consider other factors, besides revenue, before raising the rates for parking fees. If true, we can no longer be sure that the city could have made as much money as the private company did. What if the city has a legal obligation to keep the parking fees affordable, whereas the private company does not? Clearly, this answer choice does not state an assumption upon which the argument depends.

Answer choice (E): This answer choice also weakens the argument by suggesting that cities are less efficient than private companies in collecting parking fees. If so, the city would have probably struggled to raise the same amount of money as the private company did, even if it had raised the parking fees. Like answer choice (D), this answer choice attacks the conclusion rather than provide an assumption upon which the conclusion depends.
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 AnimalCrossingLSATer
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#82854
Hi Powerscore!

I have a further question regarding B (the correct answer): so when I did this question during a timed test, I interpreted B to be a conditional statement because of the phrase "had it", and then treating "had it" like "if", placed just before the city's not having the rights sold. As in:

B) The city not selling their rights to assess and collect parking fees --> The city could have raised parking fees.

If answer choice B is, indeed, a conditional because of the phrase "had it" (and please correct me if I'm wrong!), then I'm interpreting the correct answer choice, when the Negation Technique is applied, as:

(Even if) The city hadn't sold their rights --> The city, still, couldn't have raised their parking fees.

Assuming that B is a conditional statement, my question is: when it comes to applying the Negation Test to a conditional statement, is that done by keeping the sufficient component, and then negating the necessary component?

For what it's worth, I mistakenly chose D during the timed test, and then during an untimed review before looking at the answer choices, chose C (also an incorrect answer). I'll also admit on here that I had little confidence regarding how to negate a conditional statement at the time of my timed test, and that also may have played a factor in my hesitations around B.

Thanks very much for your help with this!

-Dustine B. ("AnimalCrossingLSATer")
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 KelseyWoods
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#82862
Hi Dustine!

Exactly--answer choice (B) is a conditional statement and to negate a conditional statement you basically just negate the necessary condition to say that you can have the sufficient condition without the necessary condition. Good job! "Even if" is a good phrase to use here but it can be used in a couple of different ways: 1) Even if the sufficient condition is true, the necessary condition is not true; or 2) The sufficient condition can be true even if the necessary condition is not true.

Here's a blog post that discusses negating conditional statements in more detail: https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid-29 ... -the-lsat/

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey
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 AnimalCrossingLSATer
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#82867
KelseyWoods wrote: Wed Dec 30, 2020 3:58 pm Hi Dustine!

Exactly--answer choice (B) is a conditional statement and to negate a conditional statement you basically just negate the necessary condition to say that you can have the sufficient condition without the necessary condition. Good job! "Even if" is a good phrase to use here but it can be used in a couple of different ways: 1) Even if the sufficient condition is true, the necessary condition is not true; or 2) The sufficient condition can be true even if the necessary condition is not true.

Here's a blog post that discusses negating conditional statements in more detail: https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid-29 ... -the-lsat/

Hope this helps!

Best,
Kelsey
Hi Kelsey -

Awesome - thanks very much for the helpful response! Very good to know, and I'll definitely check out that blog post as well.

-Dustine

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