LSAT 143 – Section 1 – Question 20

LSAT 143 - Section 1 - Question 20

June 2015

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT143 S1 Q20
+LR
Most strongly supported +MSS
Causal Reasoning +CausR
Sampling +Smpl
A
1%
154
B
4%
159
C
9%
156
D
1%
153
E
85%
165
142
149
157
 +Medium 148.401 +SubsectionMedium

Researchers compared the brains of recently deceased people who had schizophrenia with those of recently deceased people who did not have schizophrenia. They found that 35 percent of the former and none of the latter showed evidence of damage to a structure of nerve cells called the subplate. They knew that this damage must have occurred prior to the second fetal trimester, when the subplate controls the development of the connections between the different parts of the brain.

Summary
Researchers compared the brains of recently deceased people with schizophrenia with the brains of recently deceased people without schizophrenia. 35 percent of the brains of the people with schizophrenia showed evidence of damage to the brain’s subplate. None of the people without schizophrenia had evidence of this damage. The researchers knew the damage to the subplate must have occurred before the second fetal trimester. Before the second fetal trimester is when the subplate controls the development of different connections in the brain.

Strongly Supported Conclusions
A possible cause of schizophrenia may occur before a person is born.

A
Roughly 35 percent of people with abnormal brain subplates will eventually have schizophrenia.
This answer is unsupported. This answer flips around the relationship the stimulus is describing. We only know that 35 percent of people with schizophrenia have damage to the subplate.
B
A promising treatment in some cases of schizophrenia is repair of the damaged connections between the different parts of the brain.
This answer is unsupported. We don’t know anything about any possible or promising treatment of schizophrenia.
C
Some people developed schizophrenia because of damage to the brain subplate after the second fetal trimester.
This answer is unsupported. We are told from the stimulus that damage to the subplate prior to the second fetal trimester is a possible cause of schizophrenia.
D
Schizophrenia is determined by genetic factors.
This answer is unsupported. It is unknown whether damage to a brain’s subplate is caused by genetic factors.
E
There may be a cause of schizophrenia that predates birth.
This answer is strongly supported. The damage to a brain’s subplate occurs prior to the second fetal trimester and researchers hypothesize this is a possible cause of schizophrenia.

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LSAT PrepTest 143 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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