LSAT 106 – Section 1 – Question 05

LSAT 106 - Section 1 - Question 05

June 1999

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Question QuickView	Type	Tags	Answer Choices	Curve	Question Difficulty	Psg/Game/S Difficulty	Explanation
PT106 S1 Q05	+LR	Weaken +Weak Causal Reasoning +CausR	A 1% 162 B 0% 157 C 1% 160 D 96% 167 E 2% 159	128 138 147	+Easier	152.148 +SubsectionHarder

The number of codfish in the North Atlantic has declined substantially as the population of harp seals has increased from two million to more than three million. Some blame the seal for the shrinking cod population, but cod plays a negligible role in the seal’s diet. It is therefore unlikely that the increase in the seal population has contributed significantly to the decline in the cod population.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis

The author hypothesizes that an increase in the North Atlantic harp seal population is unlikely to be responsible for a drop in the cod population over the same time period. The author supports this hypothesis by stating that cod is not a significant part of the seals’ diet. After all, if the seals aren’t eating the cod, how could they be responsible for the observed phenomenon of the cod’s decline?

Notable Assumptions

The author assumes that the only possible way that the seal increase could causally contribute to the cod decrease is that the seals directly eat the cod. This overlooks the possibility that the two phenomena have an indirect causal relationship: for example, the seals might eat a different fish that the cod also rely on, or otherwise impact the ecosystem in a way that harms the cod.

People who fish for cod commercially are inconvenienced by the presence of large numbers of seals near traditional fishing grounds.

This does not weaken the argument. If the seals are actually helping to protect the cod by deterring fishers, that does nothing to undermine the author’s hypothesis that the seals aren’t harming the cod population.

Water pollution poses a more serious threat to cod than to the harp seal.

This does not weaken the argument. In fact, by providing an alternative hypothesis explaining why the cod population might decline that’s unrelated to the seal population increase, this claim would actually strengthen.

The harp seal thrives in water that is too cold to support a dense population of cod.

This does not weaken the argument. If anything, this claim would strengthen: it implies that the seals and the cod live in different parts of the North Atlantic, which makes it less likely that the seals would have an impact on the cod population.

Cod feed almost exclusively on capelin, a fish that is a staple of the harp seal’s diet.

This weakens the argument, because it provides an indirect causal mechanism linking the increase in seals and the decline in cod. This rebuts the assumption that the seals must either eat the cod or else not affect them at all, thus undermining the author’s hypothesis.

The cod population in the North Atlantic began to decline before the harp-seal population began to increase.

This does not weaken the argument. This claim still doesn’t indicate whatsoever that the seal increase might contribute to the cod decrease. If anything, it strengthens the argument by indicating that the cod decline began independently of the seal increase.

LSAT 106 – Section 1 – Question 05

LSAT 106 - Section 1 - Question 05

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LSAT PrepTest 106 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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