December 1995 LSAT Section 2 Question 7

The fishing industry cannot currently be relied upon to help the government count the seabirds killed by net fishing,...

Abigail-Okereke on November 14, 2022

Am I off track?

Hello, I found the answer choices very challenging to eliminate, I ended up tussling between b and c because I wasn't sure what the final conclusion of the argument was (eventually choosing c). First, I would like to know if I correctly identified the argument structure of the argument. Sentence 1 = subsidiary conclusion Sentence 2 = premise supporting sentence 1 Sentence 3= conclusion Sentence 4 = premise Sentence 5 = premise Is this correct? Secondly, could you help me work through why the answer choices are correct or not? Thank you!

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Emil-Kunkin on November 15, 2022

Hi, I would say that 1 and 3 are premises, and 2 is the conclusion. There are only three sentences here. This is a kinda odd argument. We are saying that since we are unable to get the industry to give us the data, we should create a different program to trick them into giving us the data because this new program will have an incentive.

This seems like a lot of work. Why couldn't the government simply do a survey of dead seabirds themselves without the need for this program? C seals off that possibility, it attacks a weakener, so it strengthens the argument.