LSAT 109 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q24

LR Question 24 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Supervisor: Our next budget proposal will probably be…

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: Our next budget proposal will probably be approved.

REASONING: Normally about half of the proposals are approved, but the last five have been turned down.

ANALYSIS: This is a bad argument. Past trends can give an indication of the future, sure. But there is no guarantee a trend will continue.

Something weird is going on here. If the vice president has turned down the last five proposals then maybe there is some reason for this change. He might reject the next proposal, too.

___________

1. The supervisor didn’t think approval was guaranteed. He just said it would probably be approved.
2. The supervisor didn’t make this mistake either. The supervisor just said the vice president normally approved half of the plans. If the vice president was required to approve half then he probably couldn’t have turned down five.
3. CORRECT. Failing to get five budgets approved does not increase the likelihood of success the next time. 
4. The supervisor doesn’t say whether or not the last five proposals should have been turned down. 
5. The supervisor didn’t mention the amount of money.