LSAT 101 – Section 3 – Question 12

LSAT 101 - Section 3 - Question 12

December 1997

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT101 S3 Q12
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
Fact v. Belief v. Knowledge +FvBvK
A
1%
163
B
6%
161
C
3%
162
D
88%
168
E
2%
157
133
144
156
 +Medium 146.901 +SubsectionMedium

People in the tourist industry know that excessive development of seaside areas by the industry damages the environment. Such development also hurts the tourist industry by making these areas unattractive to tourists, a fact of which people in the tourist industry are well aware. People in the tourist industry would never knowingly do anything to damage the industry. Therefore, they would never knowingly damage the seaside environment, and people who are concerned about damage to the seaside environment thus have nothing to fear from the tourist industry.

Summarize Argument
The author concludes that people need not fear that the tourism industry will harm the seaside environment. This is backed up by a long chain of support. First, people in the tourism industry are aware that overdevelopment of the seaside harms the environment. They also know that overdevelopment deters tourists, which harms their industry. Finally, we’re told that people in the tourism industry wouldn’t knowingly harm their own industry.

Identify and Describe Flaw
The author draws a broad conclusion that the tourism industry isn’t a risk to the seaside environment, but the offered support only addresses knowing harm through overdevelopment. The author doesn’t give us any reason to believe that the tourism industry wouldn’t unknowingly harm the environment, or that they wouldn’t harm the environment in a way other than overdevelopment.

A
No support is provided for the claim that excessive development hurts the tourist industry.
The author in fact does support this claim by explaining a mechanism: overdevelopment makes areas less attractive to tourists.
B
That something is not the cause of a problem is used as evidence that it never coexists with that problem.
The author just doesn’t make any claims about whether something coexists with a problem. Specifically, the author doesn’t claim that the tourism industry never coexists with environmental damage.
C
The argument shifts from applying a characteristic to a few members of a group to applying the characteristic to all members of that group.
The entire argument is phrased in general terms, talking about the entire tourism industry and all seaside areas. So, the author never focuses on just a few members of a group.
D
The possibility that the tourist industry would unintentionally harm the environment is ignored.
The author’s support only focuses on the possibility that the tourism industry would knowingly harm the environment to draw a general conclusion that they wouldn’t harm the environment at all. The author just doesn’t address the possibility of unintentional harm.
E
The argument establishes that a certain state of affairs is likely and then treats that as evidence that the state of affairs is inevitable.
The argument never makes a jump from a state of affairs being likely to that state of affairs being inevitable. The entire argument is phrased in general and absolute terms, “likely” doesn’t come into it.

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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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