June 2018 LSAT Section 2 Question 11

Psychologists have found that candidates for top political offices who blink excessively during televised debates are...

lerondagates on October 15, 2019

Not understanding

Hello, Can someone please explain this argument to me? I cannot see how the answer is C. I had C and A left but chose A. Please explain.

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Irina on October 16, 2019

@lerondagates,

The argument is telling us that "any impact this phenomenon has on election results is surely deleterious ..." meaning only in the case the viewer's perception of one's debate performance has an impact on the election, then it is deleterious but it is possible that it has no impact as well. (A) appears to be an attractive answer choice but it has no impact on the argument, it only tells us that voter's perceptions of the debate performance rarely affects national elections, but we are only interested in the case when it does affect the elections, and the stimulus argues that this is the scenario when the impact is deleterious. (D) weakens the argument because it demonstrates that when this phenomenon has an impact on elections, it cannot be said to be deleterious because there is actually a correlation between one's blinking rate and confidence, and confidence correlates with one's ability to perform well in a political office.

Let me know if this helps and if you have any further questions.

SawyerJeppson on July 17, 2021

Hi, does that mean "any impact this phenomenon has on election results is surely deleterious ..." "is the argument's conclusion?