LSAT 133 – Section 1 – Question 17

LSAT 133 - Section 1 - Question 17

June 2011

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Question QuickView	Type	Tags	Answer Choices	Curve	Question Difficulty	Psg/Game/S Difficulty	Explanation
PT133 S1 Q17	+LR	Method of reasoning or descriptive +Method Analogy +An	A 1% 150 B 1% 153 C 91% 164 D 4% 155 E 4% 156	135 143 151	+Medium	146.357 +SubsectionMedium

Psychologist: People tend to make certain cognitive errors when they predict how a given event would affect their future happiness. But people should not necessarily try to rid themselves of this tendency. After all, in a visual context, lines that are actually parallel often appear to people as if they converge. If a surgeon offered to restructure your eyes and visual cortex so that parallel lines would no longer ever appear to converge, it would not be reasonable to take the surgeon up on the offer.

Summarize Argument

The psychologist concludes that people shouldn’t try to eliminate the tendency to make cognitive errors when predicting how events will impact their future happiness. He supports this with an analogy, saying that people often mistakenly see parallel lines as converging, and, he claims, it wouldn't be reasonable to accept surgery to fix this visual error.

Describe Method of Reasoning

The psychologist supports his conclusion that a certain action would be unreasonable by presenting an analogous scenario in which another action would also be unreasonable. Just as trying to eliminate certain cognitive errors would be unreasonable, so would trying to eliminate certain visual errors, like mistakenly seeing parallel lines as converging.

attempts to refute a claim that a particular event is inevitable by establishing the possibility of an alternative event

The psychologist doesn’t refute a claim that a certain event is inevitable. Instead, he concludes that people shouldn’t try to do something. Also, he uses an analogy, not the possibility of an alternative event, to support his argument.

attempts to undermine a theory by calling into question an assumption on which the theory is based

The psychologist doesn’t undermine a theory at all, nor does he question any assumptions. Instead, he uses an analogy to arrive at a prescriptive conclusion.

argues that an action might not be appropriate by suggesting that a corresponding action in an analogous situation is not appropriate

The psychologist argues that eliminating certain cognitive errors might not be appropriate. He supports with an analogy, suggesting that a corresponding action— eliminating certain visual errors— is also not appropriate (or reasonable).

argues that two situations are similar by establishing that the same action would be reasonable in each situation

By using an analogy to support his conclusion, the psychologist does assume that two situations are similar. But he uses this analogy to conclude that two different actions— eliminating cognitive errors and eliminating visual errors— would be unreasonable in each situation.

attempts to establish a generalization and then uses that generalization to argue against a particular action

The psychologist does argue against a particular action, but he doesn’t do so by establishing a generalization. Instead, he uses an analogy to argue against a particular action.

LSAT 133 – Section 1 – Question 17

LSAT 133 - Section 1 - Question 17

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LSAT PrepTest 133 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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