LSAT 133 – Section 1 – Question 23

LSAT 133 - Section 1 - Question 23

June 2011

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT133 S1 Q23
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Causal Reasoning +CausR
Sampling +Smpl
A
3%
157
B
83%
164
C
6%
157
D
4%
155
E
4%
158
142
150
158
 +Medium 146.357 +SubsectionMedium

Researcher: Each subject in this experiment owns one car, and was asked to estimate what proportion of all automobiles registered in the nation are the same make as the subject’s car. The estimate of nearly every subject has been significantly higher than the actual national statistic for the make of that subject’s car. I hypothesize that certain makes of car are more common in some regions of the nation than in other regions; obviously, that would lead many people to overestimate how common their make of car is nationally. That is precisely the result found in this experiment, so certain makes of car must indeed be more common in some areas of the nation than in others.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The researcher concludes that certain makes of car are more common in different regions of the nation. Why? Because the researcher hypothesized that if that conclusion was true, then many people would overestimate the national commonness of their own cars—and this was the very result found by a study, thus supporting the hypothesis.

Identify and Describe Flaw
The researcher concludes that a hypothesis is true based on evidence that supports that hypothesis. However, the hypothesis could still be false, because support for a hypothesis doesn’t guarantee that it’s true. The researcher doesn’t account for the possibility of alternative explanations for the result, for example.

A
The argument fails to estimate the likelihood that most subjects in the experiment did not know the actual statistics about how common their make of car is nationwide.
The likelihood that most of the study participants were unaware of the actual commonness of their make of car is irrelevant to the argument. The argument is about whether different cars are more common in different regions, not about people’s car stats knowledge.
B
The argument treats a result that supports a hypothesis as a result that proves a hypothesis.
The researcher concludes that a hypothesis is true merely based on a premise that supports the hypothesis. This is a flaw because a hypothesis can have some support and still be false, for example if the same evidence is consistent with multiple explanations.
C
The argument fails to take into account the possibility that the subject pool may come from a wide variety of geographical regions.
Whether or not the subject pool comes from a variety of regions isn’t relevant, because the argument’s evidence just depends on most participants overestimating how common their car is.
D
The argument attempts to draw its main conclusion from a set of premises that are mutually contradictory.
The researcher does not use any premises that contradict each other in this argument.
E
The argument applies a statistical generalization to a particular case to which it was not intended to apply.
The argument doesn’t apply a generalization to a particular case. It’s more that the researcher is trying to make a generalization about car distribution across the nation based on a different generalization about how common people think their make of car is.

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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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