LSAT 150 – Section 2 – Question 11

LSAT 150 - Section 2 - Question 11

June 2018

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT150 S2 Q11
+LR
Weaken +Weak
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
8%
160
B
2%
149
C
83%
162
D
0%
145
E
6%
157
125
139
154
 +Easier 145.632 +SubsectionMedium

Psychologists have found that candidates for top political offices who blink excessively during televised debates are judged by viewers to have done less well than competing candidates who exhibit average blink rates. Any impact this phenomenon has on election results is surely deleterious: Many features—knowledgeableness, confidence, and so forth—contribute to a political official’s ability to perform well in office, but having an average blink rate is certainly not such a feature.

Summarize Argument
The author concludes that any impact from viewers’ perception that political candidates who blink excessively during a debate perform less well than those who blink an average amount is harmful. This is because a candidate’s rate of blinking is not a feature that contributes to performing well in elected office.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that blink rate is not a signal of features that are relevant to performing well in office, such as confidence.

A
Voters’ judgments about candidates’ debate performances rarely affect the results of national elections.
The argument never specifies that it’s concerned only with national elections. Effects on state elections or local elections can still be harmful. Also, the conclusion doesn’t assert that there are any effects on elections. Only that if there are effects, they’re harmful.
B
Blinking too infrequently during televised debates has the same effect on viewers’ judgments of candidates as blinking excessively.
This simply describes another way that blink rate can affect someone’s perception of a candidate. This doesn’t undermine the author’s position that perceptions based on blink rate are harmful.
C
Excessive blinking has been shown to be a mostly reliable indicator of a lack of confidence.
This suggests that excessive blink rate can be a signal of confidence, which is a feature that contributes to performance in elected office. So, judging a candidate based on excessive blinking might not be harmful, because it’s an indicator of something we were told is relevant.
D
Candidates for top political offices who are knowledgeable also tend to be confident.
This doesn’t tell us anything about blink rate or why judging candidates based on blink rate might not be harmful.
E
Viewers’ judgments about candidates’ debate performances are generally not affected by how knowledgeable the candidates appear to be.
This doesn’t tell us anything about blink rate or why judging candidates based on blink rate might not be harmful.

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LSAT PrepTest 150 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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