LSAT 121 – Section 1 – Question 19

LSAT 121 - Section 1 - Question 19

December 2005

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Question QuickView	Type	Tags	Answer Choices	Curve	Question Difficulty	Psg/Game/S Difficulty	Explanation
PT121 S1 Q19	+LR	Weaken +Weak Causal Reasoning +CausR Sampling +Smpl	A 15% 158 B 74% 165 C 1% 156 D 5% 158 E 5% 159	144 153 163	+Harder	145.604 +SubsectionMedium

Analyst: A recent survey showed that although professors of biology who teach but do not pursue research made up one twentieth of all science professors, they were appointed to fewer than one twentieth of all the scientific administrative positions in universities. We can conclude from this survey that failing to pursue research tends to bias university administrators against appointing these professors to scientific administrative positions.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis

The analyst hypothesizes that university administrators tend not to choose university professors who do not pursue research for scientific administration positions. This is based on a phenomenon demonstrated by a recent survey: biology professors who don’t pursue research are underrepresented in scientific administrative positions.

Notable Assumptions

The analyst assumes a causal relationship based on a correlation. Specifically, the analyst assumes that the underrepresentation of professors who do not pursue research in scientific administrative positions is caused by their choice not to engage in research.

In universities there are fewer scientific administrative positions than there are nonscientific administrative positions.

This does not affect the argument. Nonscientific administrative positions are not relevant to, and outside the scope of, the argument.

Biologists who do research fill a disproportionately low number of scientific administrative positions in universities.

This weakens the argument. It attacks the assumption that the professors’ failure to pursue research leads to their underrepresentation in science admin positions (instead of another factor), which implies that those who pursue research would be better represented in these roles.

Biology professors get more than one twentieth of all the science grant money available.

This does not affect the argument. Grant money is not relevant to, and outside the scope of, the argument.

Conducting biological research tends to take significantly more time than does teaching biology.

This does not affect the argument. The time it takes to conduct research is not relevant to, and outside the scope of, the argument.

Biologists who hold scientific administrative positions in the university tend to hold those positions for a shorter time than do other science professors.

This does not affect the argument. The argument is concerned with one’s likeliness to be appointed to a scientific administration position in the first place. The time biologists spend in these positions is outside the scope of the argument.

LSAT 121 – Section 1 – Question 19

LSAT 121 - Section 1 - Question 19

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Review Results

LSAT PrepTest 121 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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