LSAT 128 – Section 2 – Question 04

LSAT 128 - Section 2 - Question 04

December 2008

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Target time: 1:04

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT128 S2 Q04
+LR
Resolve reconcile or explain +RRE
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
1%
155
B
94%
167
C
2%
160
D
1%
160
E
1%
160
130
139
149
 +Easier 146.836 +SubsectionMedium

Live Commentary

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In the spring and fall, eastern pipistrelle bats roost deep inside caves. They feed at night on flying insects and must leave the cave to catch their prey. Flying insects are much more abundant on warm nights than on cool ones. Researchers found that many more bats leave the caves on warm nights than on cool nights, even though the temperature within the caves where the bats roost remains virtually the same from one night to the next.

"Surprising" Phenomenon
Bats leave their caves more often on warm, food-abundant nights than on cool nights, despite seemingly not having any way of knowing it’s a warm night outside the cave.

Objective
The right answer will be a hypothesis explaining how bats know it’s warm out despite their caves not changing temperature.

A
The researchers studied only female bats, which tended to catch more insects on warm nights than did the male bats.
We don’t care about how many bugs the bats are catching. We need to know why more bats are leaving their caves on warm nights to begin with.
B
Eastern pipistrelle bats can detect changes in barometric pressure within the caves that correlate closely with changes in temperature outside the caves.
Even though the temperature in the caves doesn’t change, the barometric pressure does. And barometric pressure is closely linked to temperature changes outside the cave. Thus, bats have a way of knowing if it’s a warm night.
C
Eastern pipistrelle bats are incapable of long periods of sustained activity outside the roosting caves on very cool spring and fall evenings.
We already know bats prefer warmer nights. We need something to explain how bats know if a night is warm or not.
D
Because of the long period of winter inactivity, eastern pipistrelle bats tend to consume more insects per day in the spring and fall than in the summer.
This doesn’t explain how bats know if it’s a warm or cool night. We don’t care about how many insects they consume in total.
E
During the periods in which the researchers studied the bats, on most evenings over half of the bats left the caves in search of food.
It doesn’t matter how many total bats are leaving their caves. We need to know why more bats are leaving their caves on warmer nights, despite bats seemingly having no way of knowing the weather while in their caves.

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LSAT PrepTest 128 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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