Bunuel wrote:
Throughout a certain nation, electricity has actually become increasingly available to people in urban areas while energy production has been subsidized to help residents of rural areas gain access to electricity. However, even with the subsidy, many of the most isolated rural populations still have no access to electricity. Thus, the energy subsidy has failed to achieve its intended purpose.
The reasoning in the argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument
(A) takes for granted that the subsidy’s intended purpose could have been achieved if the subsidy had not existed
(B) takes for granted that if a subsidy has any benefit for those whom it was not intended to benefit, then that subsidy has failed to achieve its intended purpose
(C) presumes, without providing justification, that the intended purpose of the subsidy was to benefit not only rural populations in the nation who have no electricity, but other people in the nation as well
(D) overlooks the possibility that even many of the people in the nation who live in urban areas would have difficulty gaining access to electricity without the subsidy
(E) fails to take into account that the subsidy could have helped many of the rural residents in the nation gain access to electricity even if many other rural residents in the nation were not helped in this way
EXPLANATION FROM Fox LSAT
It’s critical to answer this question in advance. The intended purpose of the rural electricity subsidy is “to help residents of rural areas gain access to electricity.” Just because “most isolated rural populations still have no access to electricity” does not mean that the policy has failed. Perhaps
zero of the most isolated rural populations had access to electricity before the subsidy, and now some of them do. Furthermore, why are the “most isolated” rural populations relevant here? Just because we haven’t been able to get the most extreme hillbillies electricity quite yet doesn’t mean we haven’t been successful—even very successful—with other rural populations.
A similarly flawed argument would be: “I stopped eating cheeseburgers to help me lose weight. I still weigh 300 pounds, so my new cheeseburger policy hasn’t helped.” This makes no sense if we don’t know my starting weight!
A) This just isn’t what we’re looking for.
B) This would be the correct answer if the argument had said, “The subsidy has helped urban populations gain electricity, therefore it is a failure.” But that’s not what the argument says.
C) Not what we’re looking for.
D) Not what we’re looking for.
E) Exactly. A policy doesn’t have to help everyone in the target population in order to be a success unless it states that somewhere in the policy itself.
Our answer is E.