LSAT 128 – Section 2 – Question 19

LSAT 128 - Section 2 - Question 19

December 2008

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT128 S2 Q19
+LR
Resolve reconcile or explain +RRE
Sampling +Smpl
Math +Math
A
6%
158
B
3%
161
C
20%
163
D
2%
164
E
69%
168
148
158
168
 +Harder 146.836 +SubsectionMedium

Live Commentary

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Criminologist: According to a countrywide tabulation of all crimes reported to local police departments, the incidence of crime per 100,000 people has risen substantially over the last 20 years. However, a series of independent surveys of randomly selected citizens of the country gives the impression that the total number of crimes was less in recent years than it was 20 years ago.

"Surprising" Phenomenon

Crime rates are up, but people surveyed believe the total number of crimes are down.

Objective

The right answer will be a hypothesis that explains the difference between the statistic about crime rates and public perception of total crime. That difference must account for either an actual decrease in the number of total crimes due to a reduced population, for the public simply being wrong about crime in the country, or for some mitigating factor around crime reporting.

A
Not all of the citizens selected for the series of independent surveys had been the victims of crime.

This just means that at least one person surveyed wasn’t a crime victim. It explains nothing about why public perception about total crime differs from crime rate statistics.

B
Most crimes committed in the country are not reported to local police departments.

If most crimes committed aren’t reported, then the crime rate statistics would undersell total crime. But people surveyed seem to think that crime has gone down. This doesn’t explain that discrepancy.

C
The total annual number of crimes committed in the country has risen over the past 20 years but has fallen in proportion to the country’s growing population.

This seems to contradict official statistics. Crime rates are up, whereas this suggests that crime rates are down.

D
In the series of independent surveys, many of the respondents did not accurately describe the crimes to which they had fallen victim.

The respondents weren’t necessarily victims of crimes. And of those who did, we don’t care how accurately they described being victims of crimes.

E
Of crimes committed in the country, a much greater proportion have been reported to local police departments in recent years than were reported 20 years ago.

Crime rates are up because people are reporting crimes to the police. However, it could still be true that the total number of crimes has fallen during that same time period. This explains why public surveys and official crime rate statistics give incongruous results.

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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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