LSAT 128 – Section 2 – Question 11

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Question
QuickView
Type Tags Answer
Choices
Curve Question
Difficulty
Psg/Game/S
Difficulty
Explanation
PT128 S2 Q11
+LR
Strengthen +Streng
Causal Reasoning +CausR
Sampling +Smpl
A
3%
159
B
0%
154
C
2%
159
D
91%
167
E
4%
157
139
146
154
+Medium 146.836 +SubsectionMedium


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A recently completed study of several hundred subjects, all of approximately the same age, showed that those who exercised regularly during the study were much less likely to die during the study. This indicates that exercise can actually increase one’s life span.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that exercise can increase life span. This is because the subjects in a study who exercised were less likely to die during the study than the subjects who didn’t exercise.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that there was no prior correlation between people who exercised and were in good health, or people who didn’t exercise and were in poor health. If people on the verge of dying didn’t exercise given their health condition, then the study wouldn’t indicate anything about the effects of exercise.

A
The subjects who did not exercise regularly during the study tended to have diets that were more unhealthy.
This weakens the author’s argument by bringing in a third factor: diet. Perhaps the people who didn’t die were saved by their diets rather than by exercise.
B
The subjects who did not exercise regularly during the study tended to blame their lack of exercise on a lack of time.
This doesn’t do much. Perhaps those people had little time because they were stressed about other things, and the stress ended up damaging their health.
C
A large number of the deaths recorded were attributable to preexisting conditions or illnesses.
This severely damages the author’s argument. People died because of their preexisting conditions rather than their lack of exercise.
D
Whether or not a given subject was to exercise during the study was determined by the researchers on a random basis.
There was no connection between prior health and exercise. This defends against the obvious weakener that only already-healthy people were exercising.
E
A person who exercises regularly is probably doing so out of concern for his or her own health.
We don’t care what motivated the participants to exercise.

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