LSAT 119 – Section 2 – Question 22

LSAT 119 - Section 2 - Question 22

June 2005

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT119 S2 Q22
+LR
Weaken +Weak
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
2%
156
B
1%
154
C
88%
165
D
7%
158
E
2%
152
136
145
154
 +Medium 144.676 +SubsectionEasier

Detective: Laser-printer drums are easily damaged, and any nick in a drum will produce a blemish of similar dimensions on each page produced by that printer. So in matching a blemish on a page with a nick on a drum, we can reliably trace a suspicious laser-printed document to the precise printer on which it was produced.

Summarize Argument
The detective concludes that he can connect a document to the laser-printer from which it was printed by matching a flaw on the document to the printer’s drum. This is because a flawed printer drum produces a similar flaw on the paper it prints.

Notable Assumptions
The detective assumes that the flaws on the drums are unique and, in extension, that several drums don’t have the same flaw. He also assumes that he can access the flawed drums to compare them with the flawed documents.

A
Criminals are unlikely to use their own laser printers to produce suspicious documents.
This does not affect the argument. The detective doesn’t claim this method will lead him to the criminal—the detective only claims that the method will lead him to the precise printer from which the blemished document was produced.
B
Drum nicks are usually so small that it requires skill to accurately determine their size and shape.
This does not affect the argument. The skill required to accurately identify drum nicks is not up for question; the usefulness of the method outlined by the detective is.
C
The manufacturing process often produces the same nick on several drums.
This weakens the argument. If several drums have the same nick, the detective would not be able to reliably determine which printer produced the blemished document using his method.
D
Blemishes on documents are sometimes totally concealed by characters that are printed over them.
This does not affect the argument. The detective only argues that a document can be traced when a blemish on a page can be matched with a nick on a drum—if the blemish can‘t be identified in the first place (and thus can’t be connected to a drum), the argument doesn’t apply.
E
Most suspicious documents are not produced on laser printers.
This does not affect the argument. The detective is only concerned with documents printed from laser-printers.

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LSAT PrepTest 119 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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