LSAT Explanation PT 26, S3, Q4: The government has spent heavily to

LSAT Question Stem

The proposal about how the government's budget should be redirected plays which one of the following roles in the argument? 

Logical Reasoning Question Type

This is an Argument Part question. 

Correct Answer

The correct answer to this question is C. 

LSAT Question Complete Explanation

Let's first break down the argument in the passage and identify its structure. The argument is about the government's spending on cleaning groundwater contaminated by toxic chemical spills and whether more budget should be redirected to preventing spills.

The conclusion of the argument is "More of the government's budget should be redirected to preventing spills." This is the main claim that the argument is trying to support.

There are two premises in the argument:

1. The government has spent heavily on cleaning groundwater, but not even one spill site has been completely cleaned, and more toxic chemicals are being spilled annually than are being cleaned up.

2. Prevention is far more effective than cleanup, and it makes little sense that the entire annual budget for prevention is less than the amount spent annually on one typical cleanup site.

Now that we've identified the conclusion and premises, let's analyze the question type and answer choices. This is an Argument Part question, which asks us to determine the role of the proposal about how the government's budget should be redirected in the argument.

a) Unsupported speculation: This answer choice is incorrect because the proposal is supported by the premises mentioned in the argument. It is not a mere speculation or hypothesis.

b) Supports another claim and is supported by others: This answer choice describes an intermediate conclusion, which is not the role of the proposal in this argument. The proposal is the main conclusion, not an intermediate one.

c) The claim that the argument as a whole is structured to support: This is the correct answer. The proposal about redirecting the government's budget is the main conclusion of the argument, and the premises provided in the passage are structured to support this claim.

d) A presupposition on which the argument is explicitly based: This answer choice is incorrect because a presupposition usually refers to an assumption, which is unstated. The proposal in the passage is not an assumption; it is the main conclusion that is being supported by the premises.

e) Presents an objection to another proposal mentioned in the argument: This answer choice is incorrect because there are no other proposals mentioned in the argument. The author compares prevention efforts and costs to cleanup efforts and costs, but no one in the argument proposes spending more on cleanup.

In summary, the proposal about how the government's budget should be redirected plays the role of the main conclusion in the argument, which is supported by the premises provided. The correct answer is C.