#22 - Lawyer: Did Congleton assign the best available

[Drackedary]

I understand why A, C, D, and E are wrong since they are all clear flaws in reasoning. But without process of elimination, I don't see why B is correct. A, C, E are obvious flaws. D took some thinking but it seems to basically suggest the the lawyer assumed the witness was a liar rather than making an honest mistake. For B, I don't understand why it's not a flaw in reasoning.

From the way I read B, isn' the lawyer excluding other possibilities? Isn't that a flaw? I kinda get the sense that B isn't as directly related to the stimulus as the other choices, but that's about it.

Thanks in advance!

[BethRibet]

Hi Drackedary,

Thanks for the question. The lawyer is using some facts that suggest that Congleton did not want the project to fail to propose that Congleton must not have wanted the project to fail. A, C & E all make that conclusion less reliable, by proposing possibilities which if true, would work against the conclusion. D is slightly different, but still undermines the conclusion by essentially highlighting that the witness could be incorrect without lying. B however does not describe anything the lawyer did -- the lawyer is essentially contending that Congleton did not want the project to fail. We have no idea whether the lawyer is also suggesting or arguing that Congleton is the only possible cause of failure. The lawyer might agree or disagree with this statement; we don't know.

Given that we don't know whether the lawyer does in fact take this statement for granted, we can't assume that answer choice B describes a flaw in this argument.

Hope that helps!

Beth

[srcline@noctrl.edu]

Hello,
I am having trouble understanding why B is the correct answer.
For a flaw question on the LSAT, is it safe to assume that often times the flaw that the author is making is an assumption?
Also can someone please explain why the other answer choices are incorrect, particularly answer choice E.
Thankyou
Sarah

[Jon Denning]

Hey Sarah,

Thanks for the question! In this case—a Flaw-Except question—we've got an argument so flawed that four of the answers (the four that are incorrect) each describes a different mistake, so let's see if we can figure out exactly what's gone wrong for the lawyer here.

The lawyer really makes two big, and related, mistakes: one is assuming that just because the witness believes Congleton assigned the best available workers to the project, that the witness must come to the logical conclusion and believe that Congleton wanted the project to succeed (in other words, assuming that the witness would draw a reasonable conclusion from the stated facts, when instead the witness could be illogical/wrong but still honest); the other is attempting to infer Congleton's desires from Congleton's actions (that is, assigning great people means Congleton wanted the project to succeed).

Each of the incorrect answers describes a version of one of those two errors:

(A) states that the assignments weren't Congleton's choice, so Congleton could have wanted the project to fail and been forced to assign good people anyway

(C) tells us that Congleton could have assigned talented people with an ulterior motive designed to undermine the project: the collective group would not work well together, and Congleton knew that when making assignments

(D) deals with the first error I described above, by saying that the witness could have been telling the truth about her belief that Congleton wanted the project to fail, even though the evidence seems to suggest otherwise (i.e. the witness drew a very questionable conclusion, but was at least honest/earnest in her beliefs about it)

(E), like (C), describes an undermining action by Congleton: assigning great people but not allotting enough time or resources for them to succeed...Congleton wanted the project to fail, and made efforts to that end not with the hires, but with the time/resources

Answer choice (B), on the other hand, doesn't address the lawyer's argument at all. Put simply, at no point does the project's actual success or failure come up, and certainly nothing about failure depending on Congleton's desires; it's only about what Congleton really wants and whether the witness is being truthful in her beliefs.

Remember, correct answers in Flaw questions—just like correct answers in Must Be True—have to first and foremost be accurate with respect to the facts in the stimulus. So as soon as an answer choices describes something that didn't actually occur, you can immediately eliminate it (or, in the case of Flaw-Except, you can select it).

I hope that helps!