Politician: Homelessness is a serious social problem, but further government spending to provide low income housing ...

Dro1215 May 11, 2021

Answer A

It sets out a problem the argument is designed to resolve. In the explanation of why this is wrong, it says that the argument does not resolve the problem of homelessness so this answer is wrong. But this answer does not say "It sets out a problem that the argument resolves" it says "it sets out a problem that the argument is DESIGNED to resolve." It seems as though the argument is designed to resolve the problem of determining the cause of homelessness. Since this sentence sets up the entire argument by defining homelessness as a social problem, I thought that A correctly described the role of the first sentence. Saying that the argument doesnt resolve the problem does not explain why answer choice A is wrong, because the answer choice does not say that the arguement is resolved, only that it is designed to resolve a problem, which I believe it is.

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Thomas August 14, 2022

Precisely why I chose it too.. I read another reply an instructor wrote "there are four objectively wrong answers and one objectively right answer". I cannot see how considering the argument is literally designed to resolve this issue of homelessness how that could possibly be an objectively wrong answer. The "right" answer relies on a long winded technicality that even having read and understood its reasoning I still disagree with it. Seems to me as though there is some latitude for subjectivity on the LSAT...

James October 3, 2022

Couldn't agree more with you guys here! I ran into the same predicament. Nothing more to say besides the fact that I hope an instructor can shed light on the matter.

Renee November 15, 2022

Agree. Glad I'm not alone on feeling the exact same way about why I selected A as the answer on this one.

Emil-Kunkin November 16, 2022

Hi, this argument is not designed to resolve the problem of homelessness. To do so, an argue,not would need to offer some sort of suggestion or potential way to solve homelessness. This argument does not do that. Rather, this is an argument against a potential solution, it is saying why some peoples idea is wrong without offering a solution of the authors.

Mariyam May 25, 2024

I just want to thank everyone who contributed their thoughts to answer question A. At times I feel like my brain doesn't work properly if I'm not picking up on the nuances involved in some of these questions but I couldn't agree more with Dro's analysis of "designed to resolve" versus "resolve".

I additionally wanted to verify that we are only to consider the portion of the sentence cited in the question stem and not the entire sentence.

Thanks everyone...

Emil-Kunkin May 27, 2024

The clarify, it doesn't matter if you read it correctly as the problem it is intended to fix, or incorrectly as the problem it does fix. The passage is not intended to solve homelessness, nor does it resolve the problem. It is intended as an attack on one potential solution. The author is arguing against a policy that is designed to resolve homelessness, it would be inserting our own thinking to treat this as being intended to solve homelessness.

And yes we should only look to the role of the claim that is mentioned in the stem.