LSAT 107 – Section 4 – Question 09

LSAT 107 - Section 4 - Question 09

October 1999

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT107 S4 Q09
+LR
Weaken +Weak
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
5%
161
B
13%
160
C
4%
163
D
78%
165
E
1%
156
130
146
161
 +Medium 141.321 +SubsectionEasier

Because of increases in the price of oil and because of government policies promoting energy conservation, the use of oil to heat homes fell by 40 percent from 1970 to the present, and many homeowners switched to natural gas for heating. Because switching to natural gas involved investing in equipment, a significant switch back to oil in the near future is unlikely.

Summarize Argument
The author claims that homeowners are generally unlikely to switch back to oil heating soon after having switched to natural gas due to its lower cost. Why? Because switching to gas in the first place required investing in new equipment, and presumably homeowners won’t want to duplicate that investment.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that the amount saved by continuing to use gas and not having to buy new oil-compatible equipment outweighs any savings from switching back to oil. In other words, equipment and oil have not gotten so much cheaper (and that gas hasn’t gotten so costly) that it would be worth switching again.

A
the price of natural gas to heat homes has remained constant, while the cost of equipment to heat homes with natural gas has fallen sharply
This does not weaken the argument, because it doesn’t challenge the author’s cost-benefit assumption. This gives us no reason to believe that oil heating now represents a cost savings over gas heating—we still don’t know which one is currently cheaper.
B
the price of home heating oil has remained constant, while the cost of equipment to heat homes with natural gas has risen sharply
This does not weaken the argument because it doesn’t indicate any kind of savings from switching back to oil. We’re only concerned with homeowners who currently use gas, so the cost of switching to gas is irrelevant. This also doesn’t tell us how oil and gas prices compare.
C
the cost of equipment to heat homes with natural gas has fallen sharply, while the price of home heating oil has fallen to 1970 levels
This does not weaken the argument. We’re not concerned with gas heating equipment prices, because we only care about current gas users. Like (E), the falling cost of oil is tempting, but we still don’t know how it compares with gas—maybe they both fell, and gas is still cheaper.
D
the cost of equipment to heat homes with oil has fallen sharply, while the price of heating with oil has fallen below the price of heating with natural gas
This weakens the argument because it indicates that oil is currently less expensive than gas, while also reducing the additional cost of getting new oil-heating equipment. This undermines the author’s cost-benefit assumption, thereby weakening.
E
the use of oil to heat homes has continued to decline, while the price of heating oil has fallen to 1970 levels
This does not weaken the argument, because like (C), just knowing that the cost of oil has fallen doesn’t actually tell us much: we still don’t know how oil and gas compare. The continued decline in oil heating also doesn’t do anything, because we don’t know why it’s happening.

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LSAT PrepTest 107 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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