PrepTest 104, Section 4, Question 12
P: Complying with the new safety regulations is(79 more words not shown)
Q responds to P's position(1 more words not shown)
- Aextending the basis(10 more words not shown)
- Bciting additional evidence(21 more words not shown)
- Cgiving examples to(20 more words not shown)
- Dshowing that P's(21 more words not shown)
- Epointing out a(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Not preventing one fire doesn't make a rule useless. It might prevent chemical spills or other accidents. P judges the new regulations by what they would have done about last year's fire, then uses that failure to dismiss their value altogether.
Q widens the question. What about the money lost in other accidents? The regulations will prevent some accidents if followed, and every accident at the laboratory wastes money. Q also states the principle connecting that benefit to the conclusion: regulations that can prevent wasted money are useful.
What we’re looking for
We're asked how Q responds. Q adds another reason compliance could be worthwhile. The response doesn't have to prove P wrong about last year's fire; it challenges the leap from failing to prevent that event to having no use at all. I'd predict an answer about broadening how we judge the regulations' value.
Working the answers
- ACorrect
“Extending the basis” means adding something else to consider, and “utility” means usefulness. P considers whether the regulations would have prevented the earlier fire and its injuries. Q adds whether obeying them can prevent accidents that waste money. That is a broader basis for deciding whether compliance is useful.
- B
Q does add information, but read what this answer says that information does. It would have to undermine P's claim about injuries in last year's fire. Q never claims the regulations would have prevented those injuries. Preventing some accidents is different from preventing that particular accident. The response can work even if P's assessment of the fire is correct.
- C
There are two mismatches. Q gives no particular examples of successful regulations; Q makes general claims about preventing accidents and wasted money. Also, P's conclusion concerns these new safety regulations, not the uselessness of all regulations. This answer changes both the method Q uses and the scope of the claim Q answers.
- D
This identifies the wrong assumption. Q doesn't try to show it is false that regulations capable of preventing last year's fire would be useful. Q could happily agree they would be useful. The problem Q exposes is P's dismissal of regulations that wouldn't prevent that fire, despite another benefit they could provide. Those are different claims.
- E
Q uses the idea of a potential benefit but doesn't contrast potential benefits with actual benefits. The distinction driving the response is between preventing the earlier fire and preventing wasted money through other accident prevention. Merely seeing the word “potentially” in Q's response isn't enough to support the comparison this answer describes.
More Strategy of Argument questions
Learn the LSAT our way
Our platform drills Strategy of Argument questions at your level and adjusts as you improve.