LSAT 137 – Section 3 – Question 17

LSAT 137 - Section 3 - Question 17

October 2012

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT137 S3 Q17
+LR
+Exp
Must be true +MBT
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
A
7%
159
B
3%
159
C
4%
157
D
72%
165
E
15%
160
140
152
165
 +Medium 146.416 +SubsectionMedium

J.Y.’s explanation

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Any food that is not sterilized and sealed can contain disease-causing bacteria. Once sterilized and properly sealed, however, it contains no bacteria. There are many different acceptable food-preservation techniques; each involves either sterilizing and sealing food or else at least slowing the growth of disease-causing bacteria. Some of the techniques may also destroy natural food enzymes that cause food to spoil or discolor quickly.

Summary
Any food that is not sterilized and sealed can contain disease-causing bacteria.
Any food that has been sterilized and properly sealed does not contain bacteria.
Some acceptable food-preservation techniques involve sterilizing and sealing food.
Some acceptable food-preservation techniques involve slowing the growth of disease-causing bacteria.
Some acceptable food-preservation techniques may destroy natural food enzymes that cause food to spoil or discolor quickly.

Notable Valid Inferences
It is possible to preserve food in an acceptable way without entirely eliminating disease-causing bacteria.
If a food has been preserved without being sterilized or sealed, that food could contain disease-causing bacteria.

A
All food preserved by an acceptable method is free of disease-causing bacteria.
Must be false. The stimulus states that some acceptable food-preservation techniques involve slowing the growth of disease-causing bacteria, rather than eliminating them completely.
B
Preservation methods that destroy enzymes that cause food to spoil do not sterilize the food.
Could be false. The stimulus is vague about which techniques destroy natural food enzymes, so it’s possible that a sterilization technique might do so.
C
Food preserved by a sterilization method is less likely to discolor quickly than food preserved with other methods.
Could be false. The stimulus is vague about which techniques destroy natural food enzymes and thereby cause food to discolor less quickly, so it’s possible that sterilization does not have this effect.
D
Any nonsterilized food preserved by an acceptable method can contain disease-causing bacteria.
Must be true. The stimulus explicitly states that any food that has not been both sterilized and properly sealed can contain disease-causing bacteria!
E
If a food contains no bacteria, then it has been preserved by an acceptable method.
Could be false. The stimulus doesn’t say that only sterilized and sealed (and thus acceptably preserved) food can be bacteria-free; rather, it tells us that all food that has been sterilized and sealed is bacteria-free. (E) confuses the necessary and sufficient conditions.

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LSAT PrepTest 137 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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