LSAT 130 – Section 1 – Question 18

LSAT 130 - Section 1 - Question 18

September 2009

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Target time: 1:28

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT130 S1 Q18
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Link Assumption +LinkA
A
6%
160
B
5%
158
C
69%
166
D
13%
161
E
7%
159
141
154
167
 +Harder 147.03 +SubsectionMedium

J.Y.’s explanation

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Travel agent: Although most low-fare airlines have had few, if any, accidents, very few such airlines have been in existence long enough for their safety records to be reliably established. Major airlines, on the other hand, usually have long-standing records reliably indicating their degree of safety. Hence, passengers are safer on a major airline than on one of the newer low-fare airlines.

Summarize Argument

The travel agent concludes that passengers are safer on major airlines than on low-fare airlines. He supports this by saying that most major airlines have long-standing, reliable safety records, while low-fare airlines often don’t have enough history to establish reliable safety records.

Identify and Describe Flaw

The travel agent draws a comparative conclusion about major airlines being safer than low-fare airlines. However, he doesn’t actually establish the safety of either kind of airline, so he can’t accurately compare the two.

Just because major airlines have reliable records doesn’t mean that those records indicate that the airlines are safe. In fact, the reliable records might show that major airlines are unsafe. Similarly, just because low-fare airlines don’t have established safety records doesn’t mean that they are actually unsafe.

A
The argument fails to address adequately the possibility that the average major airline has had a total number of accidents as great as the average low-fare airline has had.

If anything, having the same number of accidents as low-fare airlines would support the idea that major airlines are safer, since they’ve been around longer than low-fare airlines. Also, (A) simply doesn’t point out the argument’s key vulnerability.

B
The argument draws a general conclusion about how safe passengers are on different airlines on the basis of safety records that are each from too brief a period to adequately justify such a conclusion.

The agent says low-fare airline records are too short to be reliable while major airline records are not. His argument is vulnerable because it draws a general conclusion about passengers’ safety on different airlines without actually establishing the airlines’ safety at all.

C
The argument fails to consider the possibility that long-standing and reliable records documenting an airline’s degree of safety may indicate that the airline is unsafe.

The agent concludes that major airlines are safer because their safety records are more long-standing and reliable. However, he fails to consider that those reliable records might actually show that major airlines are unsafe.

D
The argument takes for granted that airlines that are the safest are also the most reliable in documenting their safety.

The agent assumes that airlines with more reliable records are safer. But he doesn't necessarily assume that the safest airlines are the most reliable in documenting their safety.

E
The argument fails to address adequately the possibility that even airlines with long-standing, reliable records indicating their degree of safety are still likely to have one or more accidents.

The agent is simply saying that major airlines are comparatively safer than low-fare airlines. As long as they have fewer accidents than low-fare airlines, it doesn’t matter whether major airlines still have some accidents.

The question stem reads: Of the following, which one is the criticism to which the reasoning in the travel agent's argument is most vulnerable? This is a flaw question.

The travel agent begins by claiming while most low-fare airlines have had few accidents, they also have not existed long enough to establish a reliable safety record. The agent goes on to claim that major airlines have long-standing records that indicate the airline's safety. The agent concludes that passengers are safe on major airlines than on low-fare airlines.

The author has made the comparative claim that major airlines are safer than low-fare airlines. So for evidence, we would need to compare how safe major airlines are versus how safe low-fare airlines are. However, the agent never actually mentions the safety of any airline; the agent only claims that major airlines have reliable records and low-fare airlines do not have reliable records. Using the agent's reasoning, we could conclude that Antarctica is hotter than Saudi Arabia because the thermometers in Antarctica are much more reliable! So the major airlines' very accurate records may indicate that they are unsafe. Let's take a look at the answer choices.

Answer Choice (A) is incorrect. The real number of accidents committed is of little use to us. Let's say the low-fare airlines crashed 10 out of the 100 flights they ran. Let's also say the major airlines crashed 100 of 100,000 flights. So the major airlines have crashed ten times more flights than the low-fare airlines. However, the major airlines only crashed 1% of their total flights, while the low-fare flights crashed 10%. So despite crashing more flights, the major airlines are much safe.

Answer Choice (B) is incorrect. The agent has claimed the major airline's safety records are reliable. The problem is we do not know what those safety records say.

Correct Answer Choice (C) is what we prephased. The agent has failed to consider that the major airlines could have very reliable safety records and be unsafe.

Answer Choice (D) is incorrect but very close. The agent never says that the major airlines have the most reliable safety records. The agent says the airlines have reliable safety records. (D) would look better if the agent said, "Major airlines have more reliable safety records than any other kind of airline."

Answer Choice (E) is incorrect. The agent claims that the major airlines are comparatively safer than low-fare airlines. So, the major airlines could have one or even hundreds of accidents. The agent's conclusion is ok as long as the major airlines have accidents less frequently than the low-fare airlines.

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LSAT PrepTest 130 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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