May 2020 LSAT Section 1 Question 24

Which one of the following does the author of the passage assert to be true?

denleybishop on February 24, 2022

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me too

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Emil-Kunkin on May 13, 2022

Hi @denleybisbop,

I see another message board post about this, so I assume you're referring to how both B and C are not supported by the passage.

This is an author agreement must be true question, so we are looking for an idea that we can definitively prove from the passage that the author would agree with.

Lets start with answer choice E. As Jing Jing correctly and helpful notes, In the second paragraph, the author argues that criminal sanctions are better than civil sanctions, and states that "the fact that private civil litigation requires an identifiable victim with the necessary resources to commence litigation weakens its deterrent impact." This statement proves that the author thinks that private civil litigation cannot occur without an identifiable victim.

Answer choice B suggests that employees are equally likely to be harmed by the two kinds of sanctions. The passage discusses employees in the third and fourth paragraphs- but never discusses employees being harmed exactly. Rather, the author discusses employees facing criminal charges as a result of their actions. The closest that we have to "harm" is the suggestion that companies might scapegoat employees to avoid criminal charges- which suggests that the author might actually think that criminal sanctions are more likely to bring harm to employees.

Answer choice C is that deterrence is the main goal of both criminal and civil liability. This is tough to eliminate, as the passage outright states that "both [types of liability] aim at deterrence" in the first paragraph. However, this does not mean that the author agrees this is both their MAIN aim. The law has many aims, and just because both types of law share a certain goal, that does not imply that that goal is the primary goal of either or both. Furthermore, the view the passage is describing here is that of the proponents of civil liability, who the author disagrees with- thus we cannot be sure if the author even agrees with the statement that both aim at deterrence.