LSAT 112 – Section 4 – Question 17

LSAT 112 - Section 4 - Question 17

December 2001

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT112 S4 Q17
+LR
+Exp
Weaken +Weak
Causal Reasoning +CausR
Sampling +Smpl
A
4%
164
B
3%
160
C
85%
167
D
5%
164
E
3%
161
123
139
155
 +Easier 142.561 +SubsectionEasier

Researchers have found that people who drink five or more cups of coffee a day have a risk of heart disease 2.5 times the average after corrections are made for age and smoking habits. Members of the research team say that, on the basis of their findings, they now limit their own daily coffee intake to two cups.

Summarize Argument
The researchers implicitly conclude that drinking just two cups of coffee per day gives them less risk of heart disease than drinking five or more cups per day. Why? Because their research found that people who drink five or more cups daily have an elevated risk of heart disease.

Notable Assumptions
The researchers assume that people who drink two cups of coffee per day have less risk of heart disease than those who drink five or more per day. They also assume there’s no factor besides age and smoking habits that is associated with coffee intake and would explain the health effect.

A
The study found that for people who drank three or more cups of coffee daily, the additional risk of heart disease increased with each extra daily cup.
This is irrelevant because it does not apply to people drinking two or fewer cups per day. It’s possible that people who drink two cups daily have an even higher risk of heart disease than people who drink five cups.
B
Per capita coffee consumption has been declining over the past 20 years because of the increasing popularity of soft drinks and also because of health worries.
The proportion of people in the world drinking coffee is not relevant to the researchers’ decision. Lots of coffee can have negative health effects even if it’s less popular than it used to be.
C
The study did not collect information that would show whether variations in level of coffee consumption are directly related to variations in level of stress, a major causal factor in heart disease.
This introduces an alternative explanation for the study’s results that challenges the researchers’ conclusion. If people who are stressed tend to consume lots of coffee, then simply reducing coffee intake may not reduce the risk of heart disease.
D
Subsequent studies have consistently shown that heavy smokers consume coffee at about 3 times the rate of nonsmokers.
The study controlled for smoking, so a relationship between smoking habits and coffee consumption should not have influenced the results.
E
Subsequent studies have shown that heavy coffee consumption tends to cause an elevated blood-cholesterol level, an immediate indicator of increased risk of heart disease.
This explains why drinking more coffee increases the risk of heart disease, without challenging the researchers’ conclusion. It does not imply that variations in blood-cholesterol levels confounded the study’s results.

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LSAT PrepTest 112 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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