December 2016 LSAT Section 1 Question 19

Politician: Of the candidates running, Thompson is the best person to lead this nation. For one thing, Thompson oppos...

saskipper on June 25, 2020

Answer choice B

I was stuck between A and B but ultimately chose B because it seemed stronger than A......(probably bc it mentions S/N conditions), but is B incorrect because it still leaves the possibility that opposing taxes could be a necessary condition of good leadership?

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shunhe on June 26, 2020

Hi @saskipper,

Thanks for the question! So let’s recap the argument real quickly. The politician is saying that Thompson’s the best person to lead the nation, since Thompson opposes higher taxes, and people agree that those who oppose higher taxes are better leaders than those who support them.

Now we’re looking for something to weaken this argument. And (A) clearly does so by severing the link between higher taxes and good leadership.

Now let’s take a look at (B), which says that being opposed to higher taxes isn’t a sufficient condition for good leadership. But does the argument make this claim? No, not at all. For example, as you mention, opposing taxes could be one of several necessary conditions of good leadership. Or perhaps it just makes for better leadership, even though other things are sufficient for good leadership. And in these cases, it would still be better to pick Thompson. (B) definitely doesn’t hurt the argument nearly as much as (A) does, and for that reason, it is incorrect.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.