LSAT 101 – Section 3 – Question 02

LSAT 101 - Section 3 - Question 02

December 1997

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT101 S3 Q02
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Value Judgment +ValJudg
Analogy +An
A
3%
163
B
1%
150
C
0%
D
1%
160
E
95%
168
122
133
145
 +Easiest 146.901 +SubsectionMedium

Advertisement: Anyone who thinks moisturizers are not important for beautiful skin should consider what happens to the earth, the skin of the world, in times of drought. Without regular infusions of moisture the ground becomes lined and cracked and its lush loveliness fades away. Thus your skin, too, should be protected from the ravages caused by lack of moisture; give it the protection provided by regular infusions of Dewyfresh, the drought-defying moisturizer.

Summarize Argument
The advertisement concludes that the audience’s skin should be regularly moisturized. This is based on an analogy to the earth, which experiences cracking and the loss of its beauty when it is not regularly moisturized.

Identify and Describe Flaw
The advertisement’s flaw is that it uses a bad analogy: it draws a conclusion about one case based on another case that isn’t really relevantly analogous. There’s no reason to believe that a lack of moisturizing will cause the same effects for skin as for the earth, since skin doesn’t have the same material properties as the earth.

A
It treats something that is necessary for bringing about a state of affairs as something that is sufficient to bring about that state of affairs.
The advertisement doesn’t confuse necessary and sufficient conditions in its reasoning. It does treat a lack of moisture as sufficient to cause cracking and loss of beauty in the earth, but never confuses that for a necessary condition.
B
It treats the fact that two things regularly occur together as proof that there is a single thing that is the cause of them both.
The advertisement just doesn’t claim that any two things that regularly occur together have a single shared cause. The only things that occur together here are lack of moisture and dryness, where one causes the other.
C
It overlooks the fact that changing what people think is the case does not necessarily change what is the case.
The advertisement doesn’t make any claims whatsoever about the relationship between what people think and what is actually true.
D
It relies on the ambiguity of the term “infusion,” which can designate either a process or the product of that process.
The advertisement doesn’t rely on an ambiguous use of the term “infusion”. Both times “infusion” is used, it it used to mean that moisture is being provided—it’s consistent, not ambiguous.
E
It relies on an analogy between two things that are insufficiently alike in the respects in which they would have to be alike for the conclusion to be supported.
The advertisement relies on an analogy between the earth and skin to draw a conclusion about the consequences of not moisturizing skin. The earth just doesn’t have the relevant similarities to skin which would be needed for the conclusion to be supported.

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LSAT PrepTest 101 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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