September 2019 LSAT Section 2 Question 17

Consultant: The mayor shouldn't adopt her rival's controversial proposal for solving the city's budget problem. If sh...

Tucker on February 9, 2020

Help please

It really seems like B should be the answer. If action committed, both scenarios are lose situations. What am I missing?

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Annie on February 13, 2020

Hi @Tucker-Sutlive,

Here's a breakdown of the consultant's argument: The mayor shouldn't do X. If the idea works, something bad may happen. If the idea fails, something bad will happen.

Answer (B) breaks down to: Joni shouldn't do X. It's unlikely that something good will happen, and if it works something bad will happen.

Answer (D) breaks down to: Alvin shouldn't do X. If it works, something bad may happen. If it doesn't work, something bad will happen.

When you break down the arguments into more abstract statements it becomes clear that (B) does not follow the exact same structure as the argument while (D) does. The key is to describe the arguments at a high level of abstraction, while taking care to notice different verbs and qualifiers, as that will let you see the common themes.