LSAT-Section-1-Logical-Reasoning Section One : Logical Reasoning - Practice Questions

Question 223

As part of a survey, approximately 10,000 randomly selected individuals were telephoned and asked a number of questions about their income and savings. Those conducting the survey observed that the older the person being queried, the more likely it was that he or she would refuse to answer any of the questions. This finding clearly demonstrates that, in general, people are more willing when they are younger than when they are older to reveal personal financial information to strangers over the telephone.

The argument above is vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument

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offers no evidence that the individuals queried would have responded differently had they been asked the same questions in years prior to the survey
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fails to specify the exact number of people who were telephoned as part of the survey
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assumes without warrant that age is the main determinant of personal income and savings levels
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assumes from the outset what it purports to establish on the basis of a body of statistical evidence
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provides no reason to believe that what is true of a given age group in general is also true of all individuals within that age group

Reference / correct answer:

offers no evidence that the individuals queried would have responded differently had they been asked the same questions in years prior to the survey

“The argument above is vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that” in the question stem is LSAT-speak for our old friend, the Logical Flaw question. When we read “the finding clearly demonstrates that” in the final sentence, we know we’ve found the conclusion: People are more willing when they are younger to reveal personal financial info to strangers in phone surveys. Notice how the conclusion compares the attitudes of young people with the attitudes of the same people once they’re older. But the evidence has a different scope – the surveyors are comparing different people to one another. It is this shift in scope that foils the argument. Maybe the older people who didn’t want to give up their financial info would have felt the same way when they were younger, and the differences cited in the study are not due to aging but rather some fundamental difference in the age groups surveyed. Answer choice [offers no evidence that the individuals queried…] captures this perfectly; the evidence in the survey in no way supports the notion that the older info hoarders would have been more forthcoming earlier in life.

Question 224

If something would have been justifiably regretted if it had occurred, then it is something that one should not have desired in the first place. It follows that many forgone pleasures should not have been desired in the first place.

The conclusion above follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?

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One should never regret one's pleasures.
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Forgone pleasures that were not desired would not have been justifiably regretted.
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Everything that one desires and then regrets not having is a forgone pleasure.
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Many forgone pleasures would have been justifiably regretted.
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Nothing that one should not have desired in the first place fails to be a pleasure.

Reference / correct answer:

Many forgone pleasures would have been justifiably regretted.

This assumption question is almost formulaic, as long as you don’t get bogged down in the abstract wording. The argument is: If you do something that you should regret, then you shouldn’t have desired it; therefore, many forgone pleasures should not have been desired to begin with. Both the evidence and conclusion contain “something that should not have been desired in the first place.” The term that seems to appear out of nowhere in the conclusion is “forgone pleasures.”In order to legitimately link “forgone pleasures” to “not desired in the first place,” we need to connect the new term – “forgone pleasures” – to the element in the evidence linked to “not desired in the first place”: “justifiably regretted.”

Choice [Many forgone pleasures…] provides this connection. If the wording throws you, think of it in terms of algebraic variables. The argument can be abstracted as follows: If X(justifiably regretted), then Y (should not have been desired). It follows that Z (forgone pleasures) is Y. Well, that works only if we connect Z with X.

Question 225

Several thousand years ago, people in what is now North America began to grow corn, which grows faster and produces more food per unit of land than do the grains these people had grown previously. Corn is less nutritious than those other grains, however, and soon after these people established corn as their staple grain crop, they began having nutrition-related health problems. Yet the people continued to grow corn as their staple grain, although they could have returned to growing the more nutritious grains.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain why the people mentioned continued to grow corn as their staple grain crop?

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The variety of corn that the people relied on as their staple grain produced more food than did the ancestors of that variety.
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Modern varieties of corn are more nutritious than were the varieties grown by people in North America several thousand years ago.
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The people did not domesticate large animals for meat or milk, either of which could supply nutrients not provided by corn.
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Some of the grain crops that could have been planted instead of corn required less fertile soil in order to flourish than corn required.
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The people discovered some years after adopting corn as their staple grain that a diet that supplemented corn with certain readily available non grain foods significantly improved their health.

LSAT-Section-1-Logical-Reasoning – Section One : Logical Reasoning