The argument advanced by the city councilor is that city taxes should be used primarily to benefit the people who pay them, so therefore, the bus fares should be raised enough to cover the cost of the service. Remember, this is a bizzaro weaken question type in that the correct answer is the answer choice that does not weaken. So, that means that the correct answer can either strengthen the argument or do nothing to the argument.
Answer choice (E) - INCORRECT
If those who work in Greenville and earn wages above the nationally mandated minimum all pay the city tax, then the subsidy for the bus fare benefits them. Therefore, the city councilors principle of city taxes should be used primarily to benefit the people who pay them will be upheld. So, their proposal to raise bus fares is uncalled for, thus, weakened.
Answer choice (D) - CORRECT
How the voters feel about the local tax increase has nothing to do with the argument advanced by the city councilors. Whether or not voters in the city oppose a tax increase does not effect benefits or hindrances that come from city taxes. Thus, answer choice (D) does nothing to the argument proposed by the city councilors, and therefore, it does not weaken.
Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.
Rob DixonJuly 25, 2013
Thanks Naz! I must have zoned-out the EXCEPT when I read the question stem. I have a performance question, and could use some advise.
How long did you take to study for the LSAT? The reason that I am asking is to gauge whether or not my 7 months of preparation would be enough to score well enough in the 160s (my goal). So far, I have been getting 60 - 70% of the HW assignments questions correct and wonder if I should move on to the next subjects or hover at a topic long enough to earn 90 and above on the HW.
So, ShouldI move on, and take a "several coats of paint" approach to nailing down a concept through practice tests, or should not advance until I have thoroughly know a concept inside and out?
NazJuly 25, 2013
Well the first thing you should ask yourself is whether or not you are getting these questions incorrect due to not understanding the strategy or approach to take for each question type, or whether it is due to careless errors. If you feel like it's misunderstanding the strategy, then I suggest you go over the lessons again and really understand the specific strategy behind each question type. If you feel that you are understanding and utilizing the strategies correctly, then the issue is careless errors. If that is the case, then I suggest you slow down when you are reading and really make sure you are not only identifying every premise and every conclusion in the argument, but truly understanding the relationship between the two.
Something that always helped me was to look at each argument as though someone I didn't trust was saying it to me. It helped me approach each argument with a very critical eye; asking myself does this make sense? Is this truly valid? What are the holes in this person's argument?
I studied for the exam full time for about four months. Study-time is subjective and depends on what your schedule looks like.
Analyzation is key. Really look at your errors and pinpoint what the issue is. Let me know. If you find that it's the strategies, let me know which types of questions you feel are most troublesome. Maybe we can go over how you are approaching the questions.
Hope this helps. Looking forward to getting your score to where you want it to be!
Rob DixonJuly 26, 2013
Thanks Naz. I think my problem was that I crammed 100 questions in one day and tried to speed up when I should take it a little more slowly. Most of my in correct answers were careless mistakes that were not primarily attributed to incorrect application of the strategies, though I did apply them wrongly a few times. Either way, thanks for the advise. I plan to revisit the weakening questions after sometime has passed so that there less of a chance that memory, instead of logical reasoning, plays a role in me answering the questions correctly.
By the way, I have been studying everyday for 4 - 7 hours with today being on the high end of that spectrum. I am not sure if this is excessive, but I want to feel that when I walk in the December LSAT I did all the preparation I could. No doubts about my level of preparedness. Thanks Naz.
sairaj87August 29, 2014
Hi naz, for weakening questions, if you can summarize into three main points as to how to tackle these questions what would you say? I find that the strategy presented doesn't always work or I guess I don't always end up using them.
NazSeptember 3, 2014
What do you find doesn't work about the strategy in the video lesson? Remember you can always call us if you'd like clarification on a specific lesson (855) 483-7862.
I would say the three main points to tackling the Weaken questions is to (1) identify the conclusion and premise--since the argument is based on the relationship between these two entities--(2) see which answer choice shows that the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premises given in support of the argument (once in a while the answer choice will show that a premise given in support of the conclusion is false, but this is very rare), and (3) check to see if the question you are dealing with is a causation or correlation flaw since we have specific ways of tackling how to weaken those.
As I said above, with every question on the LSAT, I read with a very critical eye. I try to immediately find all the ways to counter each argument. That way you are prepared, even before you reach the answer choices, to either weaken the argument by digging at a flaw that you have identified, or strengthen it by patching up the hole in the argument.
Hope that helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions.
mjhirschAugust 25, 2015
why not (C)? It does not seem to weaken the premise that "taxes should be used primarily to benefit the people who pay them". Instead, it gives a reason why it would disadvantage those who do not pay taxes.
NazSeptember 2, 2015
Even though you are correct in pointing out that answer choice (C) does not necessarily weaken the idea put forth by the city councilors that "city taxes should be used primarily to benefit the people who pay them," it still weakens the city councilors argument in general because if we are to take answer choice (C) to be true, then we know that all city councilors agree that these low income residents, who are exempt from city taxes, will be at a disadvantage if bus fares are raised enough to cover the cost of the services.
So, essentially, answer choice (C) weakens the city councilors argument by introducing a third prong to consider, i.e. how raising the bus fares will affect the low income residents of the city, a group that all the city councilors agree should be able to take advantage of city-run services.
Hope that clears things up! Please let us know if you have any other question.
