LSAT 16 – Section 2 – Question 05
LSAT 16 - Section 2 - Question 05
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| Question QuickView |
Type | Tags | Answer Choices |
Curve | Question Difficulty |
Psg/Game/S Difficulty |
Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PT16 S2 Q05 |
+LR
| Weaken +Weak | A
0%
155
B
4%
158
C
89%
168
D
2%
159
E
4%
156
|
136 145 155 |
+Medium | 146.82 +SubsectionMedium |
This is a weakening question, as the stem asks us: Which one of the following, if true, argues most strongly against the explanation reported in the passage?
The first sentence of the stimulus should be ringing the phenomenon bell in your head; the songbird population of England has decreased within recent years. The following sentence gives us the explanation hinted at in the question stem, a hypothesis for why the decrease occurred. This explanation is that the songbird decrease is correlated with the increase in population of one of the songbird’s predators, magpies, who specifically target their young and eggs. This is a classic weakening question format of phenomenon-correlation-causal hypothesis, a correct answer will likely either present an alternate hypothesis or undermines the correlation. Let’s see what we end up with:
Answer Choice (A) The stimulus specifically states that the phenomenon has occurred in recent years, so this is irrelevant.
Answer Choice (B) This answer connects to the fact that magpies target songbird eggs, but you should recognize that it gives us very little information to work with.
Correct Answer Choice (C) This answer does one of the things we predicted, it undermines the correlation between songbird population decreases and magpie population increases which the explanation inferred as a causal relation. If most cases where songbird populations decreased involved no change in the magpie population, then magpie population growth isn’t an appealing explanation for the songbird decrease.
Answer Choice (D) This answer gives us an explanation of why the magpie population has increased, but we are interested in weakening the casual hypothesis that the magpie population increase caused the songbird population decrease.
Answer Choice (E) I’m glad the magpies are getting a well-rounded diet, but even if magpies eat other stuff, the argument can still infer that more magpies means more eaten songbird eggs and babies.
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LSAT PrepTest 16 Explanations
Section 1 - Logic Games
Section 2 - Logical Reasoning
- Question 01
- Question 02
- Question 03
- Question 04
- Question 05
- Question 06
- Question 07
- Question 08
- Question 09
- Question 10
- Question 11
- Question 12
- Question 13
- Question 14
- Question 15
- Question 16
- Question 17
- Question 18
- Question 19
- Question 20
- Question 21
- Question 22
- Question 23
- Question 24
Section 3 - Logical Reasoning
- Question 01
- Question 02
- Question 03
- Question 04
- Question 05
- Question 06
- Question 07
- Question 08
- Question 09
- Question 10
- Question 11
- Question 12
- Question 13
- Question 14
- Question 15
- Question 16
- Question 17
- Question 18
- Question 19
- Question 20
- Question 21
- Question 22
- Question 23
- Question 24
- Question 25
- Question 26
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