LSAT 140 – Section 2 – Question 04

LSAT 140 - Section 2 - Question 04

December 2013

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT140 S2 Q04
+LR
+Exp
Strengthen +Streng
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
1%
155
B
1%
153
C
94%
164
D
2%
157
E
2%
155
127
136
146
 +Easier 149.441 +SubsectionMedium

Physician: Stories of people developing serious health problems shortly after receiving vaccinations have given rise to the question of whether vaccination is safe. But even if these stories are true, they need not be cause for concern. With millions of people being vaccinated every year, it is to be expected that some will develop health problems purely by coincidence shortly after receiving vaccinations.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that we don’t need to be concerned by reports of people developing health problems shortly after receiving vaccinations. This is because there are a lot of people who get vaccinated every year, and we would naturally expect some of them to develop health problems by coincidence shortly after getting vaccinated.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that the rate of developing health problems isn’t higher shortly after getting vaccinated than it is before getting vaccinated.

A
For the most part, stories of people developing serious health problems shortly after receiving vaccinations involve vaccines that were recently introduced.
If anything, this might undermine the argument by showing that certain vaccines are more associated with health problems than others. That could suggest something besides coincidence accounts for the health problems with these newer vaccines.
B
Some of the illnesses that vaccines are designed to prevent have become so rare that even if people are not vaccinated, they are unlikely to contract those illnesses.
This questions the need for getting a vaccine. But this doesn’t help suggest that vaccines aren’t causing health problems.
C
People are no more likely, on average, to develop serious health problems shortly after receiving vaccinations than shortly before receiving vaccinations.
This shows there’s no correlation between vaccines and higher rates of health problems in the period shortly after vaccinations. If vaccines really did cause the health problems, we’d expect an increase in the rate of health problems shortly after vaccination.
D
The health problems that some people have developed shortly after receiving vaccinations have been more serious than the health problems that the vaccines were intended to prevent.
The comparative severity of health problems after a vaccine and problems the vaccine is designed to prevent is irrelevant. This issue relates to whether one should take the vaccine. But it doesn’t help suggest the vaccine doesn’t cause health problems.
E
In a few cases in which people developed serious health problems shortly after taking other medications, these problems were initially attributed to coincidence but were later determined to be due to the medications.
If anything, this suggests that we should be open to a causal connection between vaccines and the health problems. But we’re trying to support the claim that vaccines are not likely to be the cause of the health problems people develop after vaccination.

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LSAT PrepTest 140 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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