LSAT 102 – Section 2 – Question 07

LSAT 102 - Section 2 - Question 07

June 1998

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT102 S2 Q07
+LR
Main conclusion or main point +MC
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
11%
161
B
4%
161
C
81%
167
D
1%
161
E
3%
156
138
149
160
 +Medium 148.204 +SubsectionMedium

J.Y.’s explanation

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Generations of European-history students have been taught that a political assassination caused the First World War. Without some qualification, however, this teaching is bound to mislead, since the war would not have happened without the treaties and alliances that were already in effect and the military force that was already amassed. These were the deeper causes of the war, whereas the assassination was a cause only in a trivial sense. It was like the individual spark that happens to ignite a conflagration that was, in the prevailing conditions, inevitable.

Summarize Argument: Causal Explanation
Although it may be technically true that World War 1 was started by a political assassination, this was not the most significant cause of the war. The alliances and military forces that were in place at the time were a necessary condition to war breaking out, and the assassination just happened to set them off. Since these other factors caused the war in a more meaningful sense, the assassination was only superficially the cause.

Identify Conclusion
The conclusion is that the political and military conditions of the time “were the deeper causes of the war, whereas the assassination was a cause only in a trivial sense.”

A
The assassination did not cause the war, since the assassination was only the last in a chain of events leading up to the war, each of which had equal claim to being called its “cause.”
The author never claims that the assassination did not cause the war. Even though the author believes the assassination was only a cause “in a trivial sense”, it still counts as a cause.
B
The war was destined to happen, since the course of history up to that point could not have been altered.
The argument doesn’t make any claims about whether all of history leading up to the war was inevitable; although the author claims it was “inevitable” that the immediately prior conditions would lead to war, maybe something could have been changed earlier on.
C
Though the statement that the assassination caused the war is true, the term “cause” more fundamentally applies to the conditions that made it possible for that event to start the war.
This is a good restatement of the argument’s conclusion. The author agrees that the assassination caused the war, but wants to explain that the conditions of the time were a “deeper”, meaning more fundamental, cause.
D
If the assassination had occurred when it did but less military force had at that time been amassed, then the war’s outbreak might have been considerably delayed or the war might not have occurred at all.
The author doesn’t speculate about what might have happened if the conditions had been different. The argument is simply aimed at clarifying that the assassination was not the most important cause of the war.
E
Although the conditions prevailing at the time the war started made war inevitable, if the war had not been triggered by the assassination it would not have taken the course with which students of history are familiar.
The author doesn’t speculate about what might have happened if the assassination had not happened. The argument is about what can be called a “cause” of the war, not about a possible alternative history.

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Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

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