Q21 - In order to pressure the

[mcrittell]

Wah!?

[timmydoeslsat]

Haha. I know you that you will kick yourself after I explain this to you. It is not bad at all.

The core of this argument can be seen as this:

Telecommunication companies in country R want their companies to be exempted from the ban of exports.

Why do they say this?

Basically these companies are saying that, "Hey!!! If you ban all exports, you would ban our telecommunication devices from being sent to country S! You know why our companies should be exempted from this ban on exports? Because when telecommunications is widely available to the public, repression is impossible!

Do you see a big assumption there? I sure do. Aren't those companies assuming that when they send their telecommunication exports to country S, that it will be widely available to the public?

Answer choice B is most definitely necessary to the argument.

Try negating it.

B) The telecommunications equipment that would be imported into S if the exemption were to be granted WOULD BE available SOLElY to top government officials in S.

That destroys the argument when you negate B, meaning that B is necessary. The argument cannot live without B.

Other answer choices.

A) This argument is not about what S does, it is about what R does. The companies in R want to export. Plus, is it necessary that it increased? Or even "recently." Necessary is a hard thing to pull off, and things like recently are not needed for this argument to stand.

C) Who cares if a majority do not favor? We don't know if the legislature supports if overwhelmingly or denounces it overwhelmingly or if it is split 50/50, and we do not NEED to know it. The companies of R made a pronouncement of why their companies should be exempted. The response it receives from the legislature is not important.

D) The telecommunication equipment does not NEED to be the MOST EFFECTIVE. You will begin to notice that these necessary assumption wrong answer choices take a certain pattern. Things like, we do not need to know if something is the MOST effective, or THE BEST, etc.

E) It is not necessary for country S to continue to repress its citizens indefinitely. With or without R's help.

[tamwaiman]

After POE I can understand why (A)(C)(D)(E) are wrong, and (B) is certainly the answer.

However, I have a question about how to negate (B). Usually when there is a conditional relation I tend to negate the necessary condition, but it seems does not work here. What's wrong with my thought? Thanks in advance.

[ManhattanPrepLSAT1]

I think it works okay... Let's convert this to If ____, then ____ form.

If the exemption were to be granted, then the telecommunications equipment that would be imported into S would not be available solely to top government officials in S.

To negate it we might say...

Even if the exemption were to be granted, the telecommunications equipment that would be imported into S would be available solely to top government officials in S.

This would challenge the argument in that the equipment would not be widely available to the population of country S. Since it wouldn't be available to everyone, the reasoning for exempting the telecommunications equipment from the export ban, would no longer have any relevance.

Let me know if that doesn't answer your question.

[MensaNumber]

Regarding A: if we don't assume that the supply of telecom equip has been recently increased we can conclude that the supply of telecom equip has long been there in country S. If the supply so far has not helped curb the repression in S so far, how will the exemption from ban now help country S? Am I overthinking this choice? Thanks!