#1 - A law that is not consistently enforced does not serve

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Main Point. The correct answer choice is (C)

The main purpose of this argument is to describe the conditions required for instituting "real law" (as opposed to the "promise of law"). The first sentence of the stimulus captures the essence of the argument: real law requires consistent (i.e. unbiased) enforcement. Because this is a Main Point question, having a solid grasp of the precise nature and scope of the conclusion will be crucial — in fact, it is often the only thing you need to do in order to answer the question correctly.


Answer choice (A): While the exercise of power entails enforcement, it misses the equally crucial element of consistency, or lack of bias. This answer choice is incorrect.

Answer choice (B): This answer choice misses the crucial element of consistency required for the institution of real law.

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice. Consistent enforcement of the law is just another way of saying "unbiased punishment of prohibited behavior." This answer choice captures both elements (consistency and enforcement) and is therefore correct.

Answer choice (D): Understanding the purpose of law may be something the author feels she can do, but it is certainly not a requirement for the institution of real law.

Answer choice (E): The author explicitly says that "[t]o institute real law is not merely to declare that such and such behavior is forbidden." Clearly defining unacceptable behavior is therefore not sufficient for instituting real law.

[yusrak]

Hi Powerscore,

I would like to make sure that I am analyzing the argument structure of the stimulus correctly. I think I might be overly prescribing conditional statements to logical reasoning stimuli. Can you please tell me if I am outlining/diagramming the stimulus correctly for this question:

Consistently enforced → purpose
law & statute → enforcement
real law → declare forbidden & punish violators
enforcers → punish w/o favor or malice

I understand what Administrator is saying about the nature of the main purpose, which is to establish what the elements of "real law" entails. But I don't understand how Administrator deduced that, "The first sentence of the stimulus captures the essence of the argument: real law requires consistent (i.e. unbiased) enforcement." How does the first sentence say that? Perhaps this deduction can be made by reading the stimulus with a big picture mindset rather than the detailed analysis that I do. Regardless, I was able to get the right answer and understand the author is arguing for unbiased enforcement without specifically identifying where it said that in the stimulus.

I was able to quickly take out A, B, and E as losers. But I spent A LOT of time considering C and D. I reasoned that D was wrong by working through ALL the conditional statements and deciding that the terms could not be linked.
But now that I am reviewing this question again, it would have been faster for me to reason that the passage's main point regarding real law is not merely to understand the law's purpose. The author is arguing for something more tangible such as a suggested shift in procedure. Thus, answer C captures the author's argument that unbiased punishment of prohibited behavior is the main point.

Can you please tell me if I am reasoning this right? Or if I am over-analyzing?

Note: "the underlining" = strikethrough since I don't know how to format strikethrough.

Thanks,
Yusra K.

[Paul Marsh]

Hi Yusrak! Nice job picking out (C) as the right answer.

Hi Powerscore,
But now that I am reviewing this question again, it would have been faster for me to reason that the passage's main point regarding real law is not merely to understand the law's purpose.

This is exactly right. The issue with Answer Choice (D) is that the stimulus at no point mentions anything about understanding the purpose of the law. Does the stimulus ever say understanding a law's purpose is necessary for the law to be real? No. So that can't be the main point of the argument. As always, for Main Point questions we're looking for a well-stated rendition of the argument's conclusion. It's not going to contain any new information; it's just going to state the conclusion well. (C) on the other hand neatly states the main point/conclusion of the stimulus: that real law requires the law to be evenly enforced.

Your instinct to always be on the lookout for diagramming conditional reasoning is a good one. Many test-takers fail to recognize situations when diagramming out the conditionals in a stimulus would be very helpful. I think that as you're learning to recognize those situations, it's not a bad thing to err on the side of looking too much for diagramming conditional reasoning. Over time and through practice, you'll be able to recognize when diagramming conditionals will help you and when it won't. This question falls into the latter category. The sentences do not all neatly fit into conditionals, and we don't gain much from trying to diagram them out. Though if we were to try to make conditional statements out of the sentences in the stimulus, most of yours look correct (with the exception of your second conditional, which I'd encourage you to take another look at). So your knowledge of how to use conditional reasoning seems largely correct. When to use conditional reasoning is another matter.

Ultimately, diagramming conditional reasoning is a tool to help you quickly and correctly navigate the logical inferences of conditional sentences. As mentioned above, you seem to have a nice grasp of how to use that tool. But knowing when to use that tool is something different. Just because a tool can be used, doesn't mean it always should be. Sometimes, diagramming the conditionals will save you time and help you make inferences that would otherwise be difficult to see. Or in other instances, diagramming makes it easier to find a Parallel answer choice that uses similar conditional reasoning. In those cases and many others, using the tool is the right move. But there are other times when trying to diagram everything will be needlessly confusing and overly time-consuming. A good starting point is to look out for the classic sufficient condition and necessary condition indicators (from Lesson 3 in the Course books). As you're practicing questions that use conditional reasoning, ask yourself, "Did diagramming these conditionals help me to reach the correct answer? If so, how?" If you take the time to critique and analyze your use of conditional diagrams, eventually you'll be very comfortable with knowing when to draw out the conditionals and when not to.

This nicely written blog post from PowerScore talks more about the subject:

https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid-33 ... o-diagram/

Oh, and as an aside, strikethrough is the "S" button next to "Font colour"

Hope that helps!

[yusrak]

Thanks Paul!! To correct my second conditional statement, I believe it should be:
law --> enforcement

[SammyWu11201]

Hey! I was stuck between C and B, and I understand where you're coming from in that Answer Choice C is the fuller answer of the two and thus correct. However, I'm still not confident with C, though.

What if there is just no explicit outline or definition of enforcement? So yes, technically, unbiased punishment would be prohibited, but so would all punishment in general, going against the stimulus. Am i overthinking this?

[Robert Carroll]

Sammy,

Neither answer choice (C) nor the stimulus is trying to say that "unbiased punishment is prohibited" as you say. Instead, they are saying that real law consists in exactly HAVING unbiased punishment of prohibited behavior. I think this misreading is the sole source of your hesitancy about answer choice (C).

Let me know if any concerns remain!

Robert Carroll

[Esquire123]

Hi there, it seems like the correct answer choice relies upon us viewing "consistency" as being synonymous with "unbiased." However, I am having trouble making that inference. Any help figuring out where I went wrong in my understanding is much appreciated:)

[Jeff Wren]

Hi Esquire123,

The first thing to be aware of is that the test makers love to use synonyms (or other slightly different wording) in correct answer choices as a way of "hiding" the correct answers. This is especially true for Main Point and Must Be True questions. What they generally try to avoid is a correct answer that is just a verbatim copy of what appeared in the stimulus, although that can happen.

If your prephrase for this answer is something like "the consistent punishment of prohibited behavior," and you come across Answer C, then you have to ask yourself, "Are they using the word 'unbiased' to get at the idea of consistency or is this different enough to make it the wrong answer?"

In plain English, the words are not identical in meaning. It is possible to be inconsistent while still being unbiased. (For example, flipping a coin to decide who gets punished would be inconsistent but not biased.) So in some questions, that difference could make this a wrong answer choice.

However, in this argument, the concept of punishment being unbiased does come up in the argument even if the word "unbiased" is not actually used. The final two sentences of the stimulus describing "without favor for their friends or malice for their enemies" is a description of being unbiased. Given this, "unbiased" gets at the idea of "consistent" in this argument, even if the terms aren't exactly identical in everyday life.

If we had an answer that said "the consistent punishment of prohibited behavior," that would be a better answer than C, but Answer C is the best that we have of the five choices.