LSAT 147 – Section 1 – Question 10

LSAT 147 - Section 1 - Question 10

September 2016

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT147 S1 Q10
+LR
Strengthen +Streng
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
7%
158
B
1%
155
C
59%
163
D
25%
161
E
8%
158
132
154
176
 +Harder 147.09 +SubsectionMedium

The more sunlight our planet reflects back into space, the cooler the global atmosphere tends to become. Snow and ice reflect much more sunlight back into space than do ocean water or land without snow cover. Therefore, the greater the area of Earth’s surface that is covered with snow and ice, the cooler, on average, the global atmosphere is likely to become.

Summarize Argument
The author concludes that if more of Earth’s surface area is covered with snow and ice, the global atmosphere will probably become cooler. This is supported by the observations that snow and ice reflect more sunlight into space than ocean or land, and the atmosphere becomes cooler when more sunlight is reflected into space.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that increased snow and ice coverage on Earth will not have other effects that counteract the cooling caused by greater sunlight reflection.

A
Low atmospheric temperatures are required for the formation of clouds that result in snow.
This is irrelevant. The author is only concerned with the effect that more snow and ice cover on Earth would have on the global atmosphere; it doesn’t matter where that snow comes from.
B
Other factors besides the reflectivity of ice and snow affect the cooling of Earth’s atmosphere.
Without more information about these factors, we don’t know whether and how they would affect the global atmospheric temperature if there was more snow and ice coverage, so this is irrelevant.
C
Ocean water and land heated by sunlight in turn warm Earth’s atmosphere.
This strengthens by providing an additional mechanism by which higher snow and ice cover on Earth would cool down the global atmosphere—that is, by reducing the area of atmosphere-warming ocean water and land.
D
The atmosphere derives most of its heat from the passage of sunlight through it.
This is irrelevant, since it doesn’t provide any additional information about the effect of snow and ice on the global atmospheric temperature.
E
Lighter-colored soil reflects more sunlight back into space than does darker-colored soil.
The argument only relies on the claim that snow and ice reflect more sunlight than land of any kind does, so comparing the reflectiveness of different types of land doesn’t make much difference—it’s just irrelevant.

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LSAT PrepTest 147 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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