LSAT 14 – Section 2 – Question 03

LSAT 14 - Section 2 - Question 03

February 1995

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT14 S2 Q03
+LR
Resolve reconcile or explain +RRE
A
3%
160
B
90%
165
C
2%
159
D
2%
157
E
4%
158
127
139
151
 +Easier 148.522 +SubsectionMedium

We should recognize this as a resolve, reconcile, explain question, since it asks: Which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain how the deer mouse might have found its way back to its nest?

Our first sentence informs us that deer mice don’t stray far from their nests, and further specifies that when they are moved more than half a kilometer from the nest, they generally never find their way back. Interesting! Since we read the question stem first, we know the discrepancy we are tasked with explaining is that despite the truth of this general statement about the difficulty of deer mice finding their way home, one deer mouse was able to. And that’s exactly what the next sentence introduces, starting with yet which indicates the shift towards our phenomenon in need of an explanation. Our phenomenon is that a young deer mouse was moved two kilometers away, which is four times the distance where a deer mouse will usually never find its way home, and yet was able to return in less than two days. An answer choices which explains how the young deer mouse did this in a way that is consistent with deer mice generally struggling to find their way home will be the correct answer. Let’s see our options:

Answer Choice (A) We’ve been told nothing about how the environment affects a deer mouse’s ability to navigate, or really anything that would make the difference between the deer mouse’s home and where it is moved matter except for distance.

Correct Answer Choice (B) The researchers camped next to the deer mouse nest for several weeks, so it would make sense if the mouse recognized the campfire smell! The answer even specifies that the smoke drifted to the area the deer mouse was released. What this answer does is make the deer mouse’s situation exceptional, such that it is no longer weird that most of the time deer mice will fail to find their way home. Most of the time they don’t have a strong recognizable scent carrying kilometers away from their home!

Answer Choice (C) We’ve been told nothing about how the number deer mice affects a deer mouse’s ability to navigate.

Answer Choice (D) That was nice of them, but it doesn’t do anything for us! If anything this answer makes the situation more confusing, as the deer mouse was unable to see where it was taken; it was within a small dark box.

Answer Choice (E) Ok, but how would that explain the deer mouse’s ability to find its way home? This just makes the fact the deer mouse survived and was able to get home even more incredible, without doing anything to explain why this deer mouse was able to break the general trend of deer mouse navigation failure.

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LSAT PrepTest 14 Explanations

Section 1 - Logic Games

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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