LSAT 139 – Section 1 – Question 19

LSAT 139 - Section 1 - Question 19

June 2013

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT139 S1 Q19
+LR
Necessary assumption +NA
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
4%
156
B
9%
161
C
5%
158
D
19%
161
E
63%
167
151
160
168
 +Hardest 142.273 +SubsectionEasier

Video of JY doing this

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The goblin fern, which requires a thick layer of leaf litter on the forest floor, is disappearing from North American forests. In spots where it has recently vanished, the leaf litter is unusually thin and, unlike those places where this fern still thrives, is teeming with the European earthworm Lumbricus rubellus, which eats leaf litter. L. rubellus is thus probably responsible for the fern’s disappearance.

Summary

The author concludes that the L. rubellus worm is probably the cause of the goblin fern’s disappearance.

Why?

Because in spots where the fern has recently vanished, the leaf litter is unusually thin and teeming with L. rubellus worms. In places where the fern is still thriving, there aren’t as many L. Rubellus worms. L. Rubellus eats leaf litter.

Notable Assumptions

The premises establish a correlation between the fern’s disappearance and greater presence of L. Rubellus. The author assumes that the reason for this correlation is that L. Rubellus causes the fern to disappear. But that’s not the only explanation. Maybe the fern first disappears, and L. Rubellus is attracted in greater numbers to places where the fern has disappeared? Or maybe there’s some other cause that leads to both the fern’s disappearance and attracts the worm? The author assumes that these other explanations are not true.

A
Wherever there is a thick layer of leaf litter in North American forests, goblin ferns can be found.

The stimulus tells us that the fern requires a thick layer of leaf litter. But that doesn’t imply that anywhere there’s a thick layer of leaf litter, the fern will exist. Even if the fern sometimes doesn’t exist when there’s a thick layer, that doesn’t undermine the author’s reasoning.

B
None of the earthworms that are native to North America eat leaf litter.

Not necessary, because other earthworms can eat leaf litter. What matters is that we’ve seen a correlation between fern disappearance and the L. Rubellus. The author does have to assume that there isn’t a similar correlation observed with other worms; but that doesn’t mean the author thinks no other worms eat leaf litter.

C
Dead leaves from goblin ferns make up the greater part of the layer of leaf litter on the forest floors where the goblin fern has recently vanished.

Not necessary, because even if dead leaves from the ferns are less than half of the leaf litter layer, that doesn’t undermine the author’s reasoning. Perhaps there are many other plants in the area that also make leaf litter, and that’s why the leaf litter could be mostly other plants, not the fern.

D
There are no spots in the forests of North America where both goblin ferns and earthworms of the species L. rubellus can be found.

Not necessary, because the fern could be in the process of disappearing in some places. If it turns out that there are some spots where we find both the ferns and the worms, it could just mean that the worms are in the process of eating leaf litter and the ferns will die soon. This is completely consistent with the author’s reasoning.

E
L. rubellus does not favor habitats where the leaf litter layer is considerably thinner than what is required by goblin ferns.

Necessary, because if it were not true — if the worm DOES favor habitats where the leaf litter is considerably thinner than that required by goblin ferns — that could be the true explanation for the presence of the worm in areas where the fern has disappeared. It’s not that the worm eats the leaf litter, which then causes the ferns to die — it could be that the leaf litter is already thin, which causes the ferns to die, and the worms show up after the leaf litter is thin.

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LSAT PrepTest 139 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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