LSAT 130 – Section 3 – Question 12

LSAT 130 - Section 3 - Question 12

September 2009

You need a full course to see this video. Enroll now and get started in less than a minute.

Request new explanation

Target time: 1:56

This is question data from the 7Sage LSAT Scorer. You can score your LSATs, track your results, and analyze your performance with pretty charts and vital statistics - all with a Free Account ← sign up in less than 10 seconds

Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT130 S3 Q12
+LR
+Exp
Weaken +Weak
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
44%
165
B
4%
156
C
14%
161
D
37%
162
E
2%
160
149
167
180
 +Hardest 145.135 +SubsectionEasier

Researcher: A number of studies have suggested that, on average, clients in short-term psychotherapy show similar levels of improvement regardless of the kind of psychotherapy they receive. So any client improvement in short-term psychotherapy must be the result of some aspect or aspects of therapy that are common to all psychotherapies—for example, the presence of someone who listens and gives attention to the client.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that any improvement in short-term psychotherapy must be the result of some aspect that is in common with all psychotherapies. This is because various studies show that, on average, clients in short-term psychotherapy show similar levels of improvement regardless of the kind of psychotherapy they get.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that there’s no other explanation for why people who get different kinds of psychotherapy, on average, experience the same levels of improvement besides the theory that all improvements from psychotherapy must come from something shared by all psychotherapies. This overlooks the possibility that, for example, different psychotherapies might have unique aspects that each produce a similar level of improvement.

A
The methods by which the studies measured whether clients improved primarily concerned immediate symptom relief and failed to address other important kinds of improvement.
This shows that we can’t rely on the studies to make a conclusion about “any” improvement. (A) opens the possibility that different psychotherapies might lead to different levels of certain kinds of improvements due to aspects that are not in common with other psychotherapies.
B
On average, clients improve more dramatically when they receive long-term psychotherapy, a year or longer in duration, than when clients receive short-term psychotherapy.
The premises and conclusion are only concerned with short-term psychotherapy. The author never assumes anything about long-term psychotherapy, so it won’t weaken to point out some difference between long-term and short-term psychotherapy.
C
The studies found that psychotherapy by a trained counselor does not result in any greater improvement, on average, among clients than does simple counseling by an untrained layperson.
The author suggests as an example that psychotherapies might help due to the presence of someone who listens. (C) is consistent with that proposal, since it could be the fact someone is listening that produces the improvements described.
D
The specific techniques and interventions used by therapists practicing different kinds of psychotherapy differ dramatically.
The author never suggested that the specific techniques and interventions can’t be different. The author simply hypothesizes that the improvement doesn’t come from those differences — it comes from something that’s similar between the psychotherapies.
E
More-experienced therapists tend to use a wider range of techniques and interventions in psychotherapy than do inexperienced therapists.
The author never suggested that different practitioners won’t use different ranges of techniques. The author simply hypothesizes that the improvement doesn’t come from any differences between the techniques used — it comes from something that’s similar among different therapies.

Take PrepTest

Review Results

LSAT PrepTest 130 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

Get full LSAT course

Leave a Reply