请教牛牛们一道LR

zsazsa

很老的一道题，但是反复思考还是不得其解，可能排除法可以得到正确答案，但恳请牛牛们帮忙分析下正确答案为什么正确，谢谢！！

Whenever a major political sacdal erupts before an election and voters blame the scandal on all parties about equally, virtually all incumbents, from whatever party, seeking reelection are returned to office. However, when voters blame such a scandal on only one party, incumbents from that party are likely to be defeated by challengers from other parties. The proportion of incumbents who seek reelection is high and remarkably constant from election to election.

If the voter's reactions are guided by a principle, which one of the following principles would best account for the contrast in reactions described above?

答案是When major political scandals are less the responsibility of individual incumbents than of of the parties to which they belong, whatever party was responsible must be penalized when possible.

我知道该原则对stimulus中的blame all parties是个很好的contrast, 但是对blame one party部分的contrast怎么体现呢？如果说the party to be blame is the one bears responsibility, isn't the result that incumbents from the party are defeated just in perfect accordence with the princile marked "contract" above?

icewarm

"Contrast in reactions described above": Whenever a major political sacdal erupts before an election and voters
blame the scandal on all parties about equally, virtually all
incumbents, from whatever party, seeking reelection are returned to
office.  VS. However, when voters blame such a scandal on only one party, incumbents
from that party are likely to be defeated by challengers from other
parties.

The principle accounts for the above contrast.

1. When both party are to be blamed, there is no way to punish either.
2. When only one party is to be blamed, it gets punished because the punishment is possilbe.

zsazsa

谢谢ICEWARM,我也是你这么想的，可是哪里有体现选项里的individual和party的关系呢？谢谢指教，感激不尽！

icewarm

"When major political scandals are less the responsibility of individual
incumbents than of of the parties to which they belong, whatever party
was responsible must be penalized when possible."

It was just a little extra info added to throw you off.

"When major political scandals are less the responsibility of individual
incumbents than of of the parties to which they belong" = "When major political scandals are the responsibility of the parties, whatever party was responsible must be penalized when possible."

This is typical LSAT language, nothing is straightforward. What we need to do is to bypass the dense unrelated info to get to the core.

icewarm

In the stimulus, there is nothing metioned about what would/should happen when only some individuals of a certain party are responsible for a scandal. There is no inference about it either. The focus of the stimulus is on parties instead of members of them.

The credited option refected this scope very well by limiting the said action "what party
was responsible must be penalized when possible" to well defined situations that are exactly what was discussed in the stimulus: "when major political scandals are less the responsibility of individual
incumbents than of of the parties to which they belong".