LSAT 121 – Section 4 – Question 09

LSAT 121 - Section 4 - Question 09

December 2005

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

Request new explanation

Target time: 1:04

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
PT121 S4 Q09
+LR
Weaken +Weak
Causal Reasoning +CausR
Sampling +Smpl
A
79%
164
B
1%
154
C
2%
160
D
17%
159
E
1%
156
137
148
159
 +Medium 146.544 +SubsectionMedium

J.Y.’s explanation

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

A recent study of several hundred female physicians showed that their tendency to develop coronary disease was inversely proportional to their dietary intake of two vitamins, folate and B6. The researchers concluded that folate and B6 inhibit the development of heart disease in women.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The researchers hypothesize that folate and B6 hinders the development of heart disease in women. This is based on a phenomenon shown in a recent study of female physicians: the more folate and B6 they had in their diet, the less likely they were to develop heart disease (and vice versa).

Notable Assumptions
The researchers assume that it is the folate and B6 in the female physicians’ diets that are preventing them from developing heart disease, as opposed to some other factor(s) in their diets or lifestyles.

A
The foods that contain significant amounts of the vitamins folate and B6 also contain significant amounts of nonvitamin nutrients that inhibit heart disease.
This weakens the researchers’ conclusion. It attacks their assumption that the B6 and folate are the critical factors that inhibit heart disease in the female physicians, as opposed to some other factor—in this case, significant amounts of nonvitamin nutrients.
B
It is very unlikely that a chemical compound would inhibit coronary disease in women but not in men.
This does not affect the argument. It may be that the researchers’ hypothesis is very unlikely, but that alone doesn’t make it any less convincing.
C
Physicians are more likely than nonphysicians to know a great deal about the link between diet and health.
This does not affect the argument. While physicians’ knowledge about how diet impacts health may influence their dietary choices, it should not affect how the vitamins in their diet influence their health, which is what the study is about.
D
The physicians in the study had not been screened in advance to ensure that none had preexisting heart conditions.
This does not affect the argument. (D) does not offer reason to suspect that physicians with preexisting heart conditions confounded the study’s results—we would have to assume that they also didn’t eat a lot of B6 and folate for there to be any potential weakening effect.
E
The vitamins folate and B6 are present only in very small amounts in most foods.
This does not affect the argument. The amount of folate and B6 in most foods can be minimal without weakening the researcher’s hypothesis that they still have the effect of inhibiting the development of heart disease.

Take PrepTest

Review Results

LSAT PrepTest 121 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

Get full LSAT course

Leave a Reply