LSAT 126 – Section 4 – Question 12

LSAT 126 - Section 4 - Question 12

October 2008

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

Ask a tutor

Target time: 0:48

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
PT126 S4 Q12
+LR
+Exp
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Sampling +Smpl
Math +Math
A
1%
152
B
0%
147
C
7%
156
D
92%
163
E
0%
153
128
138
148
 +Easier 147.084 +SubsectionMedium

Politician: Those economists who claim that consumer price increases have averaged less than 3 percent over the last year are mistaken. They clearly have not shopped anywhere recently. Gasoline is up 10 percent over the last year; my auto insurance, 12 percent; newspapers, 15 percent; propane, 13 percent; bread, 50 percent.

A
impugns the character of the economists rather than addressing their arguments
The author’s reasoning isn’t based on attacking the economists’ character. Although the author does note that they haven’t shopped anywhere recently, this isn’t a comment on character. And, the actual evidence concerns price increases of specific consumer items.
B
fails to show that the economists mentioned are not experts in the area of consumer prices
The author doesn’t need to show that the economists aren’t experts. Maybe they are experts; they can still be wrong about their claims concerning average price increases over the past year.
C
mistakenly infers that something is not true from the claim that it has not been shown to be so
The author relies on price increases of specific consumer items. The author did not say as part of the reasoning, “Economists haven’t shown that price increases aren’t lower than 3% over the past year.”
D
uses evidence drawn from a small sample that may well be unrepresentative
The evidence concerns specific consumer items that have had large price increases. But we have no reason to think those specific items are representative of consumer items generally. There can always be outliers to a statistical average.
E
attempts to persuade by making an emotional appeal
The author relies on statistics concerning specific consumer items. This is not an appeal to emotions.

Take PrepTest

Review Results

LSAT PrepTest 126 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

Get full LSAT course

Leave a Reply