LSAT 121 – Section 4 – Question 11

LSAT 121 - Section 4 - Question 11

December 2005

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Target time: 1:14

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT121 S4 Q11
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
4%
157
B
1%
154
C
6%
158
D
83%
165
E
6%
156
142
150
158
 +Medium 146.544 +SubsectionMedium

J.Y.’s explanation

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Psychiatrist: While the first appearance of a phobia is usually preceded by a traumatizing event, not everyone who is traumatized by an event develops a phobia. Furthermore, many people with phobias have never been traumatized. These two considerations show that traumatizing events do not contribute to the occurrence of phobias.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The psychiatrist concludes that traumatic events do not contribute at all to the development of phobias. His reasoning is that not all phobia suffers have trauma, and not all trauma victims have phobias.

Identify and Describe Flaw
The psychiatrist assumes that, for trauma to cause phobias, each trauma must be linked to a phobia, and vice versa. But a causal relationship doesn’t require an absolute connection to be valid (unlike a conditional one). For example, consider how smoking causally decreases life expectancy. That doesn’t mean that everyone who smokes dies young, or that everyone who will die young smokes.

A
treats the cause of the occurrence of a type of phenomenon as an effect of phenomena of that type
The psychiatrist is denying the very existence of a causal relationship, so confusing cause and effect can’t be the flaw.
B
presumes, without providing justification, that some psychological events have no causes that can be established by scientific investigation
The psychiatrist is denying one proposed explanation for a class of events; he isn’t saying that no causal explanation of them is possible.
C
builds the conclusion drawn into the support cited for that conclusion
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of circular reasoning; it isn’t applicable here, because the author’s conclusion and premises are distinct.
D
takes for granted that a type of phenomenon contributes to the occurrence of another type of phenomenon only if phenomena of these two types are invariably associated
The psychiatrist assumes that, for traumas to play any role in causing phobias, there must be an absolute link between the two. But the bar for causality isn’t that high. X can be a partial cause of Y even if X and Y don’t always appear together.
E
derives a causal connection from mere association when there is no independent evidence of causal connection
On the contrary, the psychiatrist is denying that a causal connection exists, so this can’t be the flaw.

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LSAT PrepTest 121 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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