Q21 - Of every 100 burglar alarms

[WaltGrace1983]

Here is the argument:

(P) Each false burglar alarm wastes time and takes police away from "other legitimate calls for service"
(P) Burglar alarms are effective in deterring burglaries

(C) The only acceptable solution is to fine those who raise a false alarm

This is a pretty strong conclusion: the ONLY acceptable solution. In other words, the argument is saying that NOTHING else would suffice. We should get a principle that would show this to be the case for false alarms.

(A) What about the people that do not raise false alarms? The argument is just talking about false alarms. Eliminate.

(B) The argument was never talking about payment if one could afford it. This is a bit irrelevant. Eliminate.

(C) We never talk about "improving service," "justification," or "reducing the crime level." This brings a bunch of irrelevant stuff up. Eliminate.

(D) and (E) were the really tough ones for me. (D) and (E) both talk about paying a fine: "reimbursing the public fund" for (D) and "compensate the public" for (E). This is very good.

However, the part where (D) messes up is that, while (E) focuses on JUST those who raise false alarms ("waste of scarce public resources..."), (D) focuses on ANYONE who directly benefits. This could be those who raise false alarms as well as those who have legitimate needs.

Now my question is this: wouldn't (D) still provide the "most justification" for the argument? I got this question right and I eliminated (D) through my reasoning above. However, it just feels like on some principle questions it is GOOD to overshoot (aka, a D-like answer) whereas on other Principle questions it is WRONG to overshoot (such as this question). How can we tell the difference?

[sarahejlee]

I'm glad that someone thought the same and posted a well arranged explanation of the precise thinking process I wanted an answer to. I, unfortunately, got this wrong on my first attempt, after a hard-fought debate between (D) and (E).

Something that didn't seem right in (D) was that it had to be a 'direct benefit' (Can we legitimately say that the police response to false alarms directly benefits the car owners?). Maybe that's how we can tell if (D) ISN'T as safe as you think it is???
(So where I went wrong is uppercasing 'anyone' instead of 'directly benefit'?)

Someone please help!!

[WaltGrace1983]

I'm glad that someone thought the same and posted a well arranged explanation of the precise thinking process I wanted an answer to. I, unfortunately, got this wrong on my first attempt, after a hard-fought debate between (D) and (E).

Something that didn't seem right in (D) was that it had to be a 'direct benefit' (Can we legitimately say that the police response to false alarms directly benefits the car owners?). Maybe that's how we can tell if (D) ISN'T as safe as you think it is???
(So where I went wrong is uppercasing 'anyone' instead of 'directly benefit'?)

Someone please help!!

Glad someone thought the same!

[ohthatpatrick]

Great question. I don't know if I'm going to say anything that will change our overall consensus that (D) seemingly WOULD force people to pay for cops who come to check on their house alarm.

But .... is there any question why (E) is the credited response? It locks in with the language of the stimulus at every step.

Meanwhile, (D) has at least three glitches:
"direct benefit" - no match
"public employees" - no match
"the general public fund" - no match
"average cost of providing that service" - no match

In addition, it has the ridiculous effect, as Walt pointed out, of making EVERYONE pay for every public service they benefit from always.

The phrase in the question stem that allows them to say that (E) is better is "on the basis of the premises advanced".

(D) doesn't lock into the premises nearly as well as (E).

(E) is also much better when it comes to justifying the "concluding recommendation", which is specifically about "burglar alarm system owners ... for each false alarm".

I know what you mean about Sufficient Assumption and Principle-Support answers being allowed to go overboard ... as long as they get us to that sweet conclusion finish line.

And the fact that (D) seems to get us to the finish line with a rich house owner's false alarm is probably a mistake LSAT wouldn't make on a modern test.

But sometimes answers (read: test writers) aren't perfect, and you just have to go with what you think the test writer was going for.

Trust your gut that (D) is punishing ALL citizens for EVERY public service.

Trust your gut that (E)'s buzz phrases, ("waste of scarce public resources" / "legitimate needs" ) lock in perfectly.

Hope this helps.