Principles connect the support and conclusion

Let’s start with a quick refresh on LSAT strategy: On Logical Reasoning, the procedural part starts with checking the prompt before reading the passage. It looks like this:

1. Check the prompt for how the right answer will relate to the argument. You know the answer will generally either describe the support and/or conclusion in the passage, or it will be support or a conclusion that fits into the passage.
2. Read the passage and tag each statement as either conclusion, support, or background. You know conclusions get support from other statements, and background doesn’t give or get support. It’s just there for context or clarity.
3. Carefully map the wording of the answer choices to the wording of the passage. You know everything stated in every right answer will align to statements made in the passage, so anything that doesn’t gets confidently eliminated.

Got it? Let’s do this!

*PrepTest 140 is available for FREE on LawHub even if you don’t have a subscription or access through another prep app.

PROMPT: How will the right answer relate to the argument?

I hope this was fairly recognizable to you, since the prompt says the right answer will be the one that “most supports the argument”. Next let’s tag the conclusion and support stated in the passage, then find the answer that fits in best with those statements.

PASSAGE: Tag the conclusion/s and support

Letter to the editor: [BACKGROUND: “You say…”]. Yet [SUPPORT]. So [CONCLUSION].

You want to recognize that the passage starts with an outside perspective, and that almost always means the author is gonna disagree. Which is exactly what happens. Basically the argument is that confiscating burglars’ wages is justified because the money will be used to compensate victims. Is that a good enough reason to confiscate their wages? The passage doesn’t say, so I’d anticipate the right answer telling us it is.

ANSWERS: Carefully map the wording of the answers to the passage

(A) Money stolen from a burglar should be given to that burglar’s victims.

Ooh, close but no cigar. The conclusion isn’t trying to justify giving the money to victims, which is what this answer supports. The conclusion wants to justify confiscating the money in the first place, which this answer takes for granted.

(B) Burglars are obligated…

Does the conclusion or support say anything about the obligations of burglars? Not a word. It’s the government’s actions that the argument is trying to justify.

The passage also doesn’t say it has to be the “same” individuals, so you were right on if that’s what bothered you about this one.

(C) The motive…determines whether or not that action is justified.

Did the word “motive” throw you off? That maps pretty clearly to the support saying the money will be used to compensate victims. Compensating victims is “the motive.” So I love that. And whether it’s justified is the exact subject of the conclusion. Winner!

(D) A crime is justified…

Who’s justifying “a crime”? Nobody. Don’t add in an assumption that stealing must always be a crime. That wording doesn’t map to the passage. If you read the rest of this, then maybe you agree that “only” and “people who deserve compensation” don’t map to anything stated in the passage either.

(E) Stealing is never justified…

One more time: we’re not justifying stealing, we’re justifying compensating the victims of stealing. And “never” is wayyy too extreme to make sense anyway.

(C) is the correct answer.

The big takeaway: If the prompt asks for a principle, expect the right answer to connect the support and conclusion.

Mapping for the win! If you focus on carefully tagging the conclusion when your read, then carefully checking the wording of the answers, there’s really not anything else to it. Target score here you come, am I right?

Common patterns in this question:

• Some test prep companies think “principle” is its own question type, but that’s a really unproductive way to approach it. A principle is always support, whether it’s in the passage or in the answers. Keep obsessively focusing on the analytical part of LSAT strategy — what’s support, what’s conclusion, what’s just background, and how the right answer fits in — and a principle is just another pattern we can recognize to simplify things.

The plan will work if you do.