LSAT 151 – Section 2 – Question 12

You need a full course to see this video. Enroll now and get started in less than a minute.

Request new explanation

Target time: 1:30

This is question data from the 7Sage LSAT Scorer. You can score your LSATs, track your results, and analyze your performance with pretty charts and vital statistics - all with a Free Account ← sign up in less than 10 seconds

Question
QuickView
Type Tags Answer
Choices
Curve Question
Difficulty
Psg/Game/S
Difficulty
Explanation
PT151 S2 Q12
+LR
Weaken +Weak
Math +Math
A
4%
154
B
75%
162
C
6%
153
D
13%
158
E
2%
155
134
147
159
+Medium 147.144 +SubsectionMedium

An independent computer service company tallied the service requests it receives for individual brands of personal computers. It found that, after factoring in each brand’s market share, KRV brand computers had the largest proportion of service requests, whereas ProBit brand computers had the smallest proportion of service requests. Obviously, ProBit is the more reliable personal computer brand.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author hypothesizes that ProBit is more reliable computer brand than KRV. This is based on the fact that an independent service company found that, after factoring in each brand’s market share, KRV computers had the largest proportion of service requests, whereas ProBit computers had the smallest proportion of service requests.

Notable Assumptions
The author assumes that there’s no other explanation for the disparity in service requests other than ProBit’s greater reliability than KRV. This overlooks, for example, the possibility that the kind of person who buys KRV might be less tech-savvy and thus need more tech assistance or more likely to break their computers and seek repair.

A
The proportions of service requests for the other computer brands in the tally were clustered much closer to the ProBit level of service requests than to the KRV level.
We only care about the comparison between ProBit and KRV. Other brands’ service requests don’t impact this comparison.
B
For some computer brands, but not for others, most service requests are made to the manufacturer’s service department rather than to an independent service company.
This provides a potential alternate explanation for the disparity in service requests made to the independent service company. ProBit users might be more likely than KRV users to seek service at the manufacturer’s own service department.
C
The company that did the tally receives more service requests for ProBit brand computers than does any other independent computer service company.
If anything, this might strengthen the argument by showing that the independent service company isn’t just getting an unusually low number of ProBit service requests.
D
The computer brands covered in the computer service company’s tally differ greatly with respect to their market share.
The stimulus said that the tally of service requests was made after “factoring in each brand’s market share.” So differences in market share were already controlled for and don’t affect the statistic in the stimulus.
E
ProBit has been selling personal computers for many more years than has KRV.
If anything, this might provide a reason to think that ProBit is more reliable.

Take PrepTest

Review Results

Leave a Reply