This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Answers and Explanations
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The best answer is D. This is a paradox question. The fact that most employees of Company X want their company to be more powerful than Company Y would explain why they prefer a situation in which their company is ahead of Company Y in terms of gross revenue. Each of the other answer choices is irrelevant. Answer choice A is outside the scope of the stimulus because there is no information presented on the growth rate of either company. Answer choice B is outside the scope of the stimulus because even if employees of Company X do want their gross revenue to be higher than $120 million, they would prefer the scenario in which the revenue is already at $120 million rather than the scenario in which the revenue is only $100 million. Answer choice C is irrelevant because it would not explain why employees would choose one scenario over the other. Answer choice E is irrelevant because the scenarios are based on gross revenue, not quality.
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The best answer is E. This is a weaken question. Each of the other answer choices is irrelevant to the relationship between the stated evidence concerning a client’s right to confidentiality, and the conclusion that the attorney’s duty of confidentiality and any genuine concern for victims is mutually exclusive.
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The best answer is D. This is a method of argument question. The only statement offered in support of the civil libertarians’ position is that the public officials’ explanation is self-serving. This is an attack on the motives of the officials. The civil libertarians have not offered any refutation to the assertion that electronic surveillance of public places has some beneficial effects. Each of the other choices describes a questionable argumentation technique other than the one used by the civil libertarians.
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The best answer is D. This is a role of fact question. The finding that X causes cancer in rabbits is the motivation for the proposed course of action: banning the use of X. Answer choice A is incorrect because the conclusion of the physician’s argument is that X should be banned not to save rabbits, but to save humans from a similar fate. Answer choice B is incorrect because the physician does not assert or imply that cancer in lab rabbits is a benefit to anyone. Answer choices C and E are not correct because the claim that similar research will never be done on humans is not actually supported at all. In fact, the physician uses the word “probably” in the statement as a way to avoid having to offer conclusive support.
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The best answer is E. This is a point of contention question. Both Sulema and Antonietta agree on the fact that real estate can yield a significant profit or a significant loss. Sulema uses the term “volatile” to indicate that she recognizes this fact. However, the two speakers do not agree on which investment option is best. Antonietta clearly prefers investment options that are more steady and predictable, whereas Sulema prefers the opportunity for large profit offered by the more volatile real estate market.
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The best answer is D. This is a flaw question. As discussed in Chapter 3, “Introduction to LSAT Logic,” correlation does not prove causation. Simply finding two things together—in this case, being in prison and a higher likelihood of mental illness—does not mean that one caused the other. In fact, based on the correlation given, it is just as likely that having a mental illness increases the likelihood that one will be incarcerated as that incarceration causes mental illness. Although the other answer choices contain true statements, they fail to identify any flaw in the relationship between the evidence and the conclusion presented in the argument.
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The best answer is A. This is a weaken question. Answer choice A weakens the conclusion of the argument by providing an alternate explanation for the similarity between the scenes in the two movies. In this instance, the alternate explanation offered is entirely plausible and would explain why the two scenes are so similar without blaming only the maker of the movie that came later in time for the similarity. Each of the other answer choices is irrelevant to the connection between the evidence presented and the stated conclusion.
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The best answer is B. This is a paradox question. The paradox, or apparent contradiction, arises from the fact that the physicians in charge of treatment say that all patients who receive both treatments need both treatments. And yet, the patients who receive both treatments usually don’t do any better than the patients who receive only one treatment. This apparent contradiction is resolved by the statement in answer choice B that the physicians are correctly identifying which patients need both treatments and not giving both to patients who only need radiation. In other words, patients are not randomly assigned to the two groups but rather carefully selected by experts. Each of the other statements is irrelevant to the resolution of the paradox.
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The best answer is A. This is a point of contention question. Kostamo states that she disagrees and then gives the reason for her disagreement, which is that there is a difference between a percent increase and an increase in absolute amount. In other words, if the speaker’s country had a significantly larger GNP than its neighboring country at the beginning of the time in question, it is plausible that the neighboring country’s GNP could grow by a much larger percentage but still be much smaller than the speakers’ country.
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The best answer is A. This is a principle question. The situation described in answer choice A is the most closely analogous to the stimulus. The actor is an individual, and the poor performance is certainly a case of adversity. The idea that the actor can better prepare for the future corresponds to the idea that individuals should look for ways to improve. Answer choices B, C, and D are incorrect because there is no adversity described. Answer choice E is incorrect because it does not describe the golfer discovering how to improve his golf game. It only describes the other potentially good things that will probably happen if he puts himself in a certain situation.
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The best answer is E. This is an inference question. The only answer choice that includes something that the reader may safely infer is that Carrie feels that wives should have been mentioned in the seminar title since a good portion of the discussion was devoted to wives. Answer choice A is incorrect because it is an exaggeration of Carrie’s position. Answer choice B is incorrect because it is not supported by any information in the stimulus. Just because Alan believes that the two roles, husband and wife, are parts of the same relationship, does not mean that he sees no distinction or difference between the roles. Answer choices C and D are both irrelevant to the stimulus because they go far beyond the scope of the evidence presented.
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The best answer is D. This is a flaw question. Answer choice D points to a flaw because the executive making the argument is only looking at a sample of four segments of all of television viewership. Just because the four networks that he points to are down more than 5 percent, we cannot safely conclude that at least some of those viewers have not simply moved to other networks or channels not included in the Internet executives’ sample. Answer choice A is incorrect because there is no attack on the pundits’ characters. Answer choice B is incorrect because the success or failure of the executive’s argument does not rest with showing that the pundits are not experts. Answer choices C and E both describe flaws that can be fatal to arguments but are simply not present in the stimulus argument.
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The best answer is B. This is an assumption question. Remember that an assumption is a piece of unstated evidence. If we negate answer choice B and say, “New behaviors that emerge in wolf populations over the course of a couple of decades are necessarily genetically predetermined,” we can see that this statement would directly contradict the conclusion of the stimulus argument, which is that the wolves’ behavior is evidence against genetically predetermined behavior. Because the negation of answer choice B conflicts with the conclusion of the stimulus argument, answer choice B, as originally stated, must be an important part of the argument. Negating any of the other answer choices results in a statement that is irrelevant to the argument, showing that each of the other choices is irrelevant to the argument and therefore not a suppressed premise.
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The best answer is D. This is an assumption question. The author of the argument must be assuming that public funds should be used to support literature, or nothing else in the argument would make any sense at all. If public funds should not be used to support literature, any discussion of what type of literature ought to be supported would be meaningless. The statements made in the other answer choices might or might not be true, but they are not assumptions necessary to connect the stated evidence of the stimulus argument to its conclusion.
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The best answer is E. This is a flaw question. Answer choice E correctly points out that the author of the argument is assuming that the proportion of city residents who approve of the level of funding for parks and recreation cannot be raised above 88 percent. While such an outcome is not guaranteed simply by spending more public money on parks and recreation, it is at least a plausible, possible outcome that prevents reaching the argument’s conclusion, that any new money should be spent on some other purpose, without more evidence. The other answer choices describe common argument flaws that are simply not relevant to the stimulus argument.
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The best answer is B. This is an inference question. The only selection supported by the stimulus is answer choice B because it states that Theresa did something that was morally wrong. This is supported by the statement in the stimulus, “…she did not recognize the fact that it was a morally wrong act,… ” Answer choice A is incorrect because the stimulus also states that Theresa did know that her actions were illegal. Answer choice C is incorrect because the stimulus simply does not provide enough evidence to draw any conclusion about what is or is not never excused by the law. Likewise, answer choices D and E go far beyond the scope of the stimulus in discussing what could have happened or what might happen in the future.
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The best answer is D. This is a method question. Sara challenges Jill’s conclusion mainly by pointing out that there might be another reason that such a flare has not been observed before: No one was looking for one. Sara does not do anything that is described in any of the other answer choices.
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The best answer is B. This is an assumption question. Answer choice B is the only selection that provides the missing link between the stated evidence that other theories predict behavior better than the Smith theory, and the stated conclusion that therefore, the Smith theory should be abandoned in favor of those theories. Answer choice A is incorrect because there is no evidence that the Smith theory led to predictions that proved to be false. The conclusion is supported even if the Smith theory did lead to some predictions that proved to be true, so long as the other theories’ predictions are more predictive. Answer choices C, D, and E are all irrelevant to the conclusion of the stimulus argument.
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The best answer is A. This is an assumption question. In order to state that hybrid vehicles will decrease our dependency on fossil fuels, it must be assumed that people will drive less than twice as much as they would with non-hybrid vehicles. Because hybrids use half as much fossil fuel as non-hybrids per mile, if drivers traveled more than twice as much in hybrids, there would be no net savings. Each of the other answer choices is irrelevant to the argument.
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The best answer is D. This is an assumption question. Tomassi concludes that simply because there are other ways to reduce fossil fuel consumption, it is not necessary to invest in hybrid vehicles. So, Tomassi must be assuming that the savings that will be realized from these other means will be enough to make a switch to hybrid vehicles unnecessary. Each of the other answer choices is irrelevant to the conclusion.
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The best answer is D. This is a flaw question. Answer choice D points out that the statistical evidence the movie industry guild relies on is questionable because the sample is unlikely to be representative of the population at large. Answer choice A is incorrect because the guild is not engaging in ad hominem argument. Answer choice B is incorrect because, since neither side of the argument offers any objective measure of moral offensiveness, it cannot be a flaw for one side to fail to do so. (Of course, it is unlikely that any objective measure of moral offensiveness could be formulated.) Answer choices C and E are irrelevant to the argument’s conclusion.
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The best answer is A. This is a parallel structure question. The stimulus argument makes the error of ascribing group differences to individual members of the group. Answer choice A commits the same error. Just because members of one group usually exhibit certain characteristics, it does not mean that each member of the group exhibits those characteristics. A secondary error in the stimulus argument is also repeated in answer choice A: We don’t know the comparison group for our individual member. In other words, in the stimulus argument, we don’t know the makeup of the students at the university. They might all, including Samuel, come from Gilbert T. Sloan High School. Similarly, all the horses in the competition, including Dandy Jim Zip, might be Appaloosas.
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The best answer is C. This is an assumption question. If frustration is mutually exclusive of either pity or gratitude, the conclusion, that frustration in response to insults is unreasonable, is properly drawn. Each of the other answer choices is irrelevant to the conclusion.