October 2010 LSAT Section 3 Question 3

Commentator: If a political administration is both economically successful and successful at protecting individual li...

Wyatt on July 16, 2018

Argument Structure Question #6...

In the video the second example given about the politicians etc... I got the answer of B correct, mainly because I found it to be a fairly obvious question. What I am struggling with though, and what I know I will need to break down better for tougher questions is how the conclusion is "if such measures are to be enacted, they must result from direct popular vote rather than from legislative action." I know that the main conclusion will not support any other parts, that is why I thought the conclusion was "Few politicians will support legislation that conflicts with their own self-interest." That was proposed to the premise instead. Any help breaking this down would be greatly appreciated because I truly can't understand how the actual conclusion was not in support of the one I found it to be. If few politicians will support etc.... doesn't that lead to the idea that measures must result from direct popular vote rather than legislative action???and not vice versa. I know "therefore" is a set up word for conclusions but still found this one to be backwards. Thanks

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Anita on July 16, 2018

Here, the "therefore" is a great indicator. That few politicians support legislation that conflicts with them is given here as a fact with an example. That "fact" is then used to prop up the conclusion that we have to make changes that circumvent this.

Here, there's already a "therefore" at the end, but a tip I use to find a conclusion when I'm not sure is to order & re-order the sentences with the one you think is the conclusion last and adding "therefore" to the beginning.

For example, if we had reordered it as "We have to make change through popular votes. One example is X. Therefore, politicians won't legislate against themselves," it just doesn't make sense. Try that a few times as you practice and it'll help.

Wyatt on July 16, 2018

That makes a lot of sense thank you.