LSAT 136 – Section 4 – Question 12

LSAT 136 - Section 4 - Question 12

June 2012

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT136 S4 Q12
+LR
Strengthen +Streng
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
68%
165
B
5%
162
C
17%
159
D
5%
162
E
6%
164
138
153
168
 +Harder 146.121 +SubsectionMedium

Manager: Our company’s mail-order sales have recently increased 25 percent. This increase started around the time we started offering unlimited free shipping, rather than just free shipping on orders over $50. Thus, our change in policy probably caused the increase.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The manager concludes that the policy change caused the increase in mail-order sales. He supports this by noting that mail-order sales increased 25%, starting around the time the company began offering free shipping on all orders, instead of just on orders over $50.

Notable Assumptions
The manager assumes that there are no alternative hypotheses to explain the observed correlation— that is, he assumes there’s no other explanation for the recent increase in mail-order sales, like increased online ordering across companies or increased advertising.

A
Mail-order sales have been decreasing for companies that do not offer unlimited free shipping.
This rules out the alternative hypothesis that mail-order sales have also increased across other companies. It also strengthens the causal connection between unlimited free and increased mail-order sales by suggesting that without it, such sales may not increase.
B
The company did not widely advertise its change in policy.
This weakens the argument by suggesting that many customers didn’t know about the company’s unlimited free shipping. If they didn’t know about it, it’s unlikely that it influenced their mail-order purchases.
C
The company’s profits from mail-order sales have increased since the change in policy.
Irrelevant. The manager only addresses an increase in mail-order sales, not an increase in profits from mail-order sales. The fact that profits increased doesn’t help to establish that the policy change caused the increase in sales.
D
The company’s change in policy occurred well after its competitors started offering unlimited free shipping.
Irrelevant. Even if other companies have been offering unlimited free shipping much longer, we still need to determine whether unlimited free shipping caused the increase in mail-order sales at the manager’s company.
E
Most companies offer free shipping only on mail-order purchases over $50.
Irrelevant. Even if most companies don’t offer unlimited free shipping, we still need to determine whether unlimited free shipping caused the increase in mail-order sales at the manager’s company.

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LSAT PrepTest 136 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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