LSAT 124 – Section 1 – Question 08

LSAT 124 - Section 1 - Question 08

December 2007

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT124 S1 Q08
+LR
Weaken +Weak
Causal Reasoning +CausR
Sampling +Smpl
A
19%
163
B
6%
160
C
5%
160
D
31%
166
E
40%
163
159
180
180
 +Hardest 146.495 +SubsectionMedium

Doctor: In three separate studies, researchers compared children who had slept with night-lights in their rooms as infants to children who had not. In the first study, the children who had slept with night-lights proved more likely to be nearsighted, but the later studies found no correlation between night-lights and nearsightedness. However, the children in the first study were younger than those in the later studies. This suggests that if night-lights cause nearsightedness, the effect disappears with age.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that, if night-lights cause nearsightedness, that effect disappears as one gets older. This is based on three studies. In the first study, researchers found a correlation between having slept with night-lights as a baby and having near-sightedness as a child. In the other two studies, which involved older children than those involved in the first study, reserachers found no correlation between night-lights and nearsightedness.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that the reason two studies found a lack of correlation between night-lights and nearsightedness is that any nearsightedness must have disappeared as children got older.
It’s important to note that the author is not assuming that night-lights actually cause nearsightedness. The author’s conclusion is just that if night-lights cause nearsightedness, then the effect disappears with age.

A
A fourth study comparing infants who were currently sleeping with night-lights to infants who were not did not find any correlation between night-lights and nearsightedness.
This study provides evidence that sleeping with night-lights doesn’t cause nearsightedness in infants. But the author never assumed that it did. The conclusion is just that *if* there’s a causal relationship, that effect disappears with age.
B
On average, young children who are already very nearsighted are no more likely to sleep with night-lights than young children who are not already nearsighted.
This helps eliminate the possibility that children who are already nearsighted might sleep with night-lights at a higher rate than those who aren’t nearsighted. But this doesn’t relate to disappearance with age.
C
In a study involving children who had not slept with night-lights as infants but had slept with night-lights when they were older, most of the children studied were not nearsighted.
This helps show that sleeping with night-lights as an older child does not cause nearsightedness. But these children didn’t sleep with night-lights as infants. So it doesn’t help examine whether effects disappear as a child gets older.
D
The two studies in which no correlation was found did not examine enough children to provide significant support for any conclusion regarding a causal relationship between night-lights and nearsightedness.
This weakens by reducing the reliability of the two studies. If they didn’t examine enough children to provide significant support for a conclusion about cause, then the author can’t rely on them to conclude that the effect of night-lights disappears with age.
E
In a fourth study involving 100 children who were older than those in any of the first three studies, several of the children who had slept with night-lights as infants were nearsighted.
That “several” of the children were nearsighted does not establish a correlation between nearsightedness and night-lights in the study. It’s possible the almost all who slept with night-lights didn’t have nearsightedness, even if several did.

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LSAT PrepTest 124 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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