Bunuel wrote:
Mayor: Local antitobacco activists are calling for expanded antismoking education programs paid for by revenue from heavily increased taxes on cigarettes sold in the city. Although the effectiveness of such education programs is debatable, there is strong evidence that the taxes themselves would produce the sought-after reduction in smoking. Surveys show that cigarette sales drop substantially in cities that impose stiff tax increases on cigarettes.
Which one of the following, if true, most undermines the reasoning in the argument above?
(A) A city-imposed tax on cigarettes will substantially reduce the amount of smoking in the city if the tax is burdensome to the average cigarette consumer.
(B) Consumers are more likely to continue buying a product if its price increases due to higher taxes than if its price increases for some other reason.
(C) Usually, cigarette sales will increase substantially in the areas surrounding a city after that city imposes stiff taxes on cigarettes.
(D) People who are well informed about the effects of long-term tobacco use are significantly less likely to smoke than are people who are not informed.
(E) Antismoking education programs that are funded by taxes on cigarettes will tend to lose their funding if they are successful.
EXPLANATION FROM Fox LSAT
The mayor’s argument sounds reasonable to me. The mayor is saying the expanded antismoking education bill has two chances to reduce smoking. First, there’s the education itself. Second, there’s the huge tax on cigarettes. Even if the education doesn’t work, the Mayor reasons, huge taxes might curtail cigarette purchases, which would presumably reduce smoking. As much as I’d prefer to argue, I don’t hate this thinking.
We’re asked to “undermine” the reasoning. I don’t have a prediction here, so we’ll just have to venture into the answer choices.
A) This could only weaken the argument if we were provided with an additional premise that said, “The tax is not burdensome to the average smoker.” Lacking that premise, this answer choice isn’t a weakener. Actually, if given the additional information that the tax
is burdensome to the average smoker, this answer would become a strengthener. We need to pick an answer choice that’s a clear weakener, and this isn’t it.
B) This isn’t relevant, because studies show that “cigarette sales drop substantially in cities that impose stiff tax increases on cigarettes.” It doesn’t matter whether they would have been more sensitive to a regular price increase than to a tax hike. What matters is that they do, in fact, curtail their purchases in response to the hike.
C) This could be it. If this is true, then smoking in the mayor’s city might not decrease even if cigarette sales decrease within city limits. The city’s residents will just drive five minutes out of town and avoid the tax. Hell, they’ll probably smoke on the way there and on the way back!
D) This is certainly true in real life, but real life isn’t the point. The point is: Will smoking decrease even if the education doesn’t work? The mayor says it will, because the tax will drive down cigarette sales. This answer doesn’t attack the mayor’s logic.
E) This might be true, but it doesn’t attack the mayor’s logic. The mayor would just say, “This would mean my plan worked! The point isn’t to pay for education, it’s to stop smoking. If nobody is buying cigarettes, then the plan has already won, via the tax. I told you I didn’t care whether the education actually worked or not.”
Our answer is C, because it illustrates how the tax might drive down sales but still not reduce smoking.
close
06 Oct 2021, 01:30
46%
(02:23)
wrong 
