LSAT 151 – Section 2 – Question 13

LSAT 151 - Section 2 - Question 13

September 2018

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT151 S2 Q13
+LR
Resolve reconcile or explain +RRE
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
2%
154
B
0%
152
C
8%
153
D
1%
149
E
88%
161
128
138
149
 +Easier 147.144 +SubsectionMedium

When scientific journals began to offer full online access to their articles in addition to the traditional printed volumes, scientists gained access to more journals and easier access to back issues. Surprisingly, this did not lead to a broader variety of articles being cited in new scientific articles. Instead, it led to a greater tendency among scientists to cite the same articles that their fellow scientists cited.

"Surprising" Phenomenon
Scientists began citing a smaller group of sources once they had easier access to a larger group of sources.

Objective
The right answer will be a hypothesis that explains why scientists ended up using a narrower range of sources after getting access to a larger range of sources. This explanation must account for some motivation or proclivity, be that general across disciplines or specific to the scientific community, to use less sources even when more sources are available. Alternatively, the explanation could account for some issue in the digitalized sources.

A
A few of the most authoritative scientific journals were among the first to offer full online access to their articles.
Even if the most authoritative journals were among the first to offer online access, the others eventually ended up online, as well. We need to know why scientists chose not to use these sources.
B
Scientists who wrote a lot of articles were the most enthusiastic about accessing journal articles online.
We’re not concerned about a subset of scientists. The correct answer will discuss scientists in general.
C
Scientists are more likely to cite articles by scientists that they know than they are to cite articles by scientists they have never met, even if the latter are more prominent.
If scientists generally cite people they know, then they probably aren’t citing the same articles as their peers at different institutions. This seems to contradict the stimulus rather than resolve it.
D
Several new scientific journals appeared at roughly the same time that full online access to scientific articles became commonplace.
A couple new scientific journals doesn’t change much. We don’t even know when these journals went online.
E
Online searching made it easier for scientists to identify the articles that present the most highly regarded views on an issue, which they prefer to cite.
Scientists can simply search for eminent articles rather than sifting through journals as before. These articles are generally preferred, so many scientists end up citing them. Thus, there’s less variety in the articles scientists choose to cite.

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LSAT PrepTest 151 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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