LSAT 140 – Section 2 – Question 12

LSAT 140 - Section 2 - Question 12

December 2013

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT140 S2 Q12
+LR
+Exp
Weaken +Weak
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
4%
159
B
62%
165
C
2%
157
D
27%
161
E
4%
159
142
156
171
 +Harder 149.441 +SubsectionMedium

Though Earth’s human population is increasing, it currently uses only a relatively small fraction of the supply of fresh water. Thus, claims that water shortages will plague humankind in the near future unless population growth trends change are simply mistaken.

Summarize Argument
The author concludes that humankind won’t encounter water shortages in the near future. This is because the human population currently uses only a small portion of the fresh water supply.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that water shortages are caused exclusively by using too much of the total fresh water supply. This means the author believes that supply is the same everywhere, rather than that certain areas have more available fresh water than others. He also assumes that humans in the near future won’t need to use significantly more of the available fresh water than they do now.

A
Population growth trends are notoriously hard to predict with reasonable accuracy.
The author says that population growth trends really don’t matter. There’s more than enough fresh water to sustain the human population.
B
The amount of fresh water available to meet the needs of Earth’s population varies significantly from region to region.
Not everyone has equal access to fresh water. Population growth in certain regions with little fresh water might indeed cause water shortages if there’s only limited water to go around.
C
Not all of Earth’s population will adopt water conservation methods in the near future.
The author never says people are currently practicing water conservation methods. Thus, we don’t care whether or not they’ll eventually adopt those methods.
D
If Earth’s population continues to increase, it will eventually outstrip all available resources.
We’re talking about the “near future.” This is evidently referring to a much longer time frame.
E
The percentage of fresh water used for agriculture is likely to grow more quickly than is the percentage used for industry.
We have no idea what the relative percentages of agriculture and industry water use are currently. Besides, the author says we have plenty of fresh water as it is. We can’t assume growth in agriculture water use will deplete the fresh water supply.

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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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