More than a year ago, the city announced that police would crack down

Question

More than a year ago, the city announced that police would crack down on illegally parked cars and that resources would be diverted from writing speeding tickets to ticketing illegally parked cars. But no crackdown has taken place. The police chief claims that resources have had to be diverted from writing speeding tickets to combating the city’s staggering drug problem. Yet the police are still writing as many speeding tickets as ever. Therefore, the excuse about resources being tied up in fighting drug-related crime simply is not true.

The conclusion in the passage depends on the assumption that

(A) every member of the police force is qualified to work on combating the city’s drug problem
(B) drug-related crime is not as serious a problem for the city as the police chief claims it is
(C) writing speeding tickets should be as important a priority for the city as combating drug-related crime
(D) the police could be cracking down on illegally parked cars and combating the drug problem without having to reduce writing speeding tickets
(E) the police cannot continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever while diverting resources to combating drug-related crime

Source: LSAT

Skywalker18 · Accepted Answer

-The police are still writing as many speeding tickets as ever
-It cannot be true that resources are being tied up in fighting drug-related crimes

Pre-thinking - The gap is that, just because there is no decrease in writing speeding tickets, does not demand that there is not a decrease in the resources utilized to write those speeding tickets. What if the speeding tickets are easier to come by now? What if there have been a million more occurrences of speeding? What if the police are being less forgiving about speeding tickets so that they are now writing speeding tickets for going 2mph over but before they were not? Who knows!

(A) "Qualified" doesn't tell us that much. Also, this does not mention speeding tickets which is a huge red flag. Does every member of the police need to be qualified for this conclusion to make sense? Nope. This is just simply not necessary and it does nothing to bridge the gap at all.

(B) So what if it is not as serious of a problem? We still need to say something about the issue of speeding tickets, which is not said here! If we negate this, it really doesn't do anything to the argument.

(C) The big red flag here is "should be." We don't need to conclude anything about what the police force "should be" doing. This is simply not necessary.

(D) This actually might be leaning towards the opposite of what we want. This is basically saying that the police can do both! They can both crack down on the drug problem and not "have to reduce writing speeding tickets."

(E) This is correct. If you try to negate it, it destroys the argument. This is helping the conclusion because, while the conclusion says that it is not possible to write as many speed tickets while diverting resources, this answer choice is also saying that.

"The police can continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever..." -- Negation test

Bunuel · Answer

Official Explanation

This is a rather straightforward problem. We are asked to find the suppressed premised, or assumption, of the argument. Finding the suppressed premise, of an argument can be difficult. However, on the LSAT you have an advantage—the suppressed premise is listed as one of the five answer-choices. To test whether an answer-choice is a suppressed premise, ask yourself whether it would make the argument more plausible. If so, then it is very likely a suppressed premise.

The argument states that resources have supposedly been diverted from writing speeding tickets to combating the drug problem and yet the same number of speeding tickets are still being written. It then concludes the resources were in fact not diverted to fighting drug-related crime. The link that allows this conclusion to be drawn is the assumption that if resources were diverted to drug enforcement, then fewer speeding tickets would have been written.  The answer is (E).

amit2k9 · Answer

JarvisR · Answer

More than a year ago, the city announced that police would crack down on illegally parked cars and that resources would be diverted from writing speeding tickets to ticketing illegally parked cars. But no crackdown has taken place.   The police chief claims that resources have had to be diverted from writing speeding tickets to combating the city‟s staggering drug problem. Yet the police are still writing as many speeding tickets as ever .

Therefore,  the excuse about resources being tied up in fighting drug-related crime simply is not true.

The conclusion in the passage depends on the assumption that

(A) every member of the police force is qualified to work on combating the city‟s drug problem
(B) drug-related crime is not as serious a problem for the city as the police chief claims it is
(C) writing speeding tickets should be as important a priority for the city as combating drug-related crime
(D) the police could be cracking down on illegally parked cars and combating the drug problem without having to reduce writing speeding tickets
 (E) the police cannot continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever while diverting resources to combating drug-related crime
Negate: the police can continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever while diverting resources to combating drug-related crime

OptimusPrepJanielle · Answer

The conclusion says that since the speeding tickets are not reduced, police has not diverted attention to other activities.
Option E hits this directly by saying that police cannot do two activities simultaneously.

Hence the correct answer

ayushi219 · Answer

(A) every member of the police force is qualified to work on combating the city‟s drug problem-- out of scope as we see the conclusion
(B) drug-related crime is not as serious a problem for the city as the police chief claims it is--problem and resources being diverted are two different things. 
(C) writing speeding tickets should be as important a priority for the city as combating drug-related crime-- priority has nothing to do with resources 
(D) the police could be cracking down on illegally parked cars and combating the drug problem without having to reduce writing speeding tickets -- Not sure why this is wrong??
(E) the police cannot continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever while diverting resources to combating drug-related crime Not sure why this is correct.

Some one please Explain D and E simultaneously?

OptimusPrepJanielle · Answer

Hi ayushi219,

Option D goes against our argument. the argument says that the police is unable to track down illegally parked cars because they are busy with the drug related crime.
Whereas this option says that police has the ability to do all the three things simultaneously. Certainly not the assumption we are looking for.

Regarding Option E,
The conclusion says that since the speeding tickets are not reduced, police has not diverted attention to other activities.
Option E hits this directly by saying that police cannot do two activities simultaneously.

Does this help?

msk0657 · Answer

Took 2:15 mins.

Given that police would crack down on illegally parked cars and resources are diverted from speeding tickets to illegally parked cars.

But till nothing happened and police continue to write speeding tickets and they are also fighting drug-related crimes. But the conclusion is that Police are not dealing crimes but they are writing tickets.

Prephrase : Police would be doing both or the same police force would be ticketing and also taking care of drug related crimes.

Only option E is as per our assumption and if we negate the option the police  can  continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever while diverting resources to combating drug-related crime...i.e. they can handle both...thus the conclusion can be weakened.

Option A to D, doesn't deal as per the argument.

Hope this clears.

adkikani · Answer

generis   VeritasKarishma   nightblade354

Please help me with correct negation here:

What MUST BE TRUE for the conclusion to be valid?

Conclusion: The excuse about resources being tied up in fighting drug-related crime simply is not true.

Premise:
Police chief has (say 100) policemen to ticket people who speed cars.
Earlier, city decided to divert above policemen to ticket people who illegally park their cars.

However, recent happenings do not show any evidence of people ticketed for illegally parking their cars.

The Police chef now defends his men: Drug abuse are on rise, so I had to divert my men to combat it.

The people are smarter, they say: Oh if these 100 people were diverted to stop drugs abuse, how come the number of people caught for speeding cars HAVE NOT decreased. So you are showing up an excuse to not issue tickets to people who park their cars illegally.

Completely out of scope, qualification of force and seriousness of issue at hand is now way related 
to the argument.

I form a bad habit discard options with  should .
Reason: An assumption MUST BE TRUE. No one is asking the author's opinion.

Do we negate main verb of the sentence? Please advise on below negation and its effect on conclusion;
Option 1:
 the police could NOT be cracking down on illegally parked cars and combating the drug problem without having to reduce writing speeding tickets 
Option 2:
 the police could be cracking down on illegally parked cars and combating the drug problem while simultaneously having to reduce writing speeding tickets

Presenting two negated versions:

the police can continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever while diverting resources to combating drug-related crime.

But above defeats my evidence itself, which says: no of speeding tickets are the same.
An assumption is about finding a missing link of evidence, not destroying the evidence itself.

the police cannot continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever while not diverting resources to combating drug-related crime 
I found it a complex to review for an effect on the conclusion.

KarishmaB · Answer

Premises: City announced that police would divert resources from writing speeding tickets to ticketing illegally parked cars. But no crackdown has taken place. The police claims that resources have had to be diverted from writing speeding tickets to combating the city’s staggering drug problem. Yet the police are still writing as many speeding tickets as ever. Conclusion Therefore, the excuse about resources being tied up in fighting drug-related crime simply is not true. The author is concluding that the police are not engaged in drug-related crime simply because the number of speeding tickets are same as before. The author is assuming that it is not possible to issue same number of speeding tickets after diverting resources. (but it may not be so - the police could employ more effective strategies of issues speeding tickets needing fewer officers) (A) every member of the police force is qualified to work on combating the city’s drug problem Irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether EVERY member is qualified to combat drug problem or not. (B) drug-related crime is not as serious a problem for the city as the police chief claims it is Irrelevant. We are not judging whether he resources should be diverted to drug problem. (C) writing speeding tickets should be as important a priority for the city as combating drug-related crime Irrelevant. Again, we are not judging the relative importance of various problems. (D) the police could be cracking down on illegally parked cars and combating the drug problem without having to reduce writing speeding tickets The premises tell us that illegally parked car problem is not being combated. Since this runs against the given premise, it can obviously not be something the author assumes i.e. it can't be a missing premise. (E) the police cannot continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever while diverting resources to combating drug-related crime Negation - the police CAN continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever while diverting resources to combating drug-related crime If the police can continue writing as many tickets as before (by being more effective) after diverting resources, our conclusion falls. Hence this is the assumption. Similar question: https://gmatclub.com/forum/a-month-ago- ... it=project

adkikani · Answer

Thanks  VeritasKarishma  for your two cents. The approach you pointed out in the  similar question  helps me more than negation.

Can correct question to ask to find an assumption be:
Given my premises are true, WHAT ELSE DO I NEED for my conclusion to be valid.

On similar lines, can I assume that:
The police chief has a  fixed number of men  at his disposal and if frees his few men out of ticketing people engaged in speeding cars
to counter drug abuse, then these men will not sit idle.

The efficiency of police staff (new information in the argument as you bought) led to same no of ticketing for speeding.
In your negated version, I still could not get how can you claim:
the excuse about resources being tied up in fighting drug-related crime simply is  true 
The efficiency is pertaining to ticketing for speeding and claim talks about fighting drug-related crime.

KarishmaB · Answer

Yes, an assumption is something you NEED for your conclusion to hold. An Assumption is a missing necessary premise. Look for a gap between premises and conclusion. Check out these posts: https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#/2013/0 ... sumptions/ https://www.gmatclub.com/forum/veritas-prep-resource-links-no-longer-available-399979.html#/2013/0 ... -question/

Raman109 · Answer

Understanding the argument - 
More than a year ago, the city announced that police would crack down on illegally parked cars and that resources would be diverted from writing speeding tickets to ticketing illegally parked cars. Fact
But no crackdown has taken place. "But" introduces a contrast. Fact. 
The police chief claims that resources have had to be diverted from writing speeding tickets to combating the city’s staggering drug problem. Claim/Premise 
Yet the police are still writing as many speeding tickets as ever. - "yet" introduces a contrast from the previous statement. 
Therefore, the excuse about resources being tied up in fighting drug-related crime simply is not true. - Conclusion. Aligned with the contrast and against what the Police chief claimed.

Option Elimination. - we need to find the minimum condition or the missing premise or the assumption for the conclusion to hold: the excuse about resources being tied up in fighting drug-related crime is not true. What if the police could deploy cameras/technology or new strategies and write as many or even more tickets while deploying resources to solve drug-related issues? The basic assumption of the author is that the police can't do both at the same time, and this is what option E highlights.

(A) every member of the police force is qualified to work on combating the city’s drug problem - "qualification" is out of the scope of the argument, which is to find the missing premise for the conclusion to hold: the excuse about resources being tied up in fighting drug-related crime is not true.
 
(B) drug-related crime is not as serious a problem for the city as the police chief claims it is - judging the police chief's claim is out of scope.

(C) writing speeding tickets should be as important a priority for the city as combating drug-related crime - We are looking for an assumption. Right? What is an assumption? A missing premise or fact? What is this statement? "should be"? Is it an opinion? Can this be an assumption? No. Moreover, at best, from the argument, it seems that drug-related crime is a priority, and this option is trying to establish equal importance for speeding tickets as well, which is out of scope.

(D) the police could be cracking down on illegally parked cars and combating the drug problem without having to reduce writing speeding tickets - First, the "illegally parked cars" are not part of the conclusion and scope of our argument here. Secondly, even if we take the drugs part, it says that police can do both, which directly weakens the conclusion. The assumption, when negated, weakens the conclusion, but not without negating. All assumptions are strengths (while all strengthened can't be assumptions as assumptions that "must be true" or a necessary condition). Opposite of what we need.

(E) the police cannot continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever while diverting resources to combating drug-related crime
Negate: the police can continue writing as many speeding tickets as ever while diverting resources to combating drug-related crime

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More than a year ago, the city announced that police would crack down

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