LSAT 132 – Section 2 – Question 16

LSAT 132 - Section 2 - Question 16

December 2010

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Question QuickView	Type	Tags	Answer Choices	Curve	Question Difficulty	Psg/Game/S Difficulty	Explanation
PT132 S2 Q16	+LR	Strengthen +Streng Causal Reasoning +CausR	A 1% 151 B 9% 158 C 11% 156 D 12% 158 E 68% 166	146 156 165	+Harder	148.345 +SubsectionMedium

Tissue biopsies taken on patients who have undergone throat surgery show that those who snored frequently were significantly more likely to have serious abnormalities in their throat muscles than those who snored rarely or not at all. This shows that snoring can damage the throat of the snorer.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis

The author hypothesizes that snoring can damage the throat of the snorer. This is because of a study showing that throat surgery patients who snored frequently were more likely to have throat abnormalities than patients who didn’t snore frequently.

Notable Assumptions

Based on a mere correlation between snoring and throat abnormalities, the author assumes that snoring causes throat abnormalities. This means the author doesn’t believe the relationship is the reverse (i.e. that throat abnormalities cause snoring) or that some hidden third factor accounts for both snoring and throat abnormalities.

The study relied on the subjects’ self-reporting to determine whether or not they snored frequently.

This suggests the study was possibly flawed. That would weaken the author’s argument, whereas we’re trying to strengthen it.

The patients’ throat surgery was not undertaken to treat abnormalities in their throat muscles.

We don’t care what the surgeries did. These abnormalities existed before the surgeries, and were correlated with patients who snored more frequently than other patients.

All of the test subjects were of similar age and weight and in similar states of health.

This might actually weaken the author’s argument. If all the test subjects were otherwise equal, then that leaves open the door some unaccounted for third factor to do with age, weight, or health was responsible for their throat abnormalities.

People who have undergone throat surgery are no more likely to snore than people who have not undergone throat surgery.

We’re not interested in who undergoes throat surgery. We need to strengthen the connection between snoring and throat abnormalities, whereas this tries to weaken the connection between throat surgery and snoring.

The abnormalities in the throat muscles discovered in the study do not cause snoring.

This defends against the obvious counterargument: the causation is actually reversed. Throat abnormalities don’t cause snoring, so we can rule that out as an alternate explanation.

LSAT 132 – Section 2 – Question 16

LSAT 132 - Section 2 - Question 16

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LSAT PrepTest 132 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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