LSAT 155 – Section 2 – Question 17

LSAT 155 - Section 2 - Question 17

November 2019

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT155 S2 Q17
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
4%
149
B
75%
162
C
3%
149
D
2%
148
E
16%
155
141
149
157
 +Medium 145.934 +SubsectionMedium

Psychiatrist: Psychological stress is known both to cause negative emotions and to impair physical health. This suggests that overcoming such negative emotions when they arise could cause one’s health to improve.

Summarize Argument
The author concludes that overcoming negative emotions can cause one’s health to improve. This is based on the fact that stress is known to cause both negative emotions and worse health.

Identify and Describe Flaw
The author assumes that negative emotions cause worse health, simply because both are caused by stress. This overlooks the possibility that two things can have no causal impact on each other, even though they are both effects of a common cause.

A
It presumes without justification that two conditions that together have a certain effect causally influence one another.
The author doesn’t present “two conditions that together have a certain effect.” We’re not told that negative emotions and worse healthy together have some other effect.
B
It presumes, merely on the basis that two conditions have a common cause, that one of these two conditions can causally influence the other.
The author assumes, merely because both negative emotions and worse health have a common cause (stress), that negative emotions causally infuence health.
C
It confuses two causes that together are necessary to bring about an effect with causes that are sufficient for that effect.
The author doesn’t present “two causes that together are necessary to bring about an effect.” We’re not told that negative emotions and worse health are necessary to cause something else.
D
It takes for granted that two conditions that together have a certain effect can, each by itself, produce the same effect.
The author doesn’t present “two conditions that together have a certain effect.” We’re not told that negative emotions and worse health togethr produce an effect.
E
It takes for granted that removing a condition that causally contributes to another condition suffices to eliminate the latter condition.
The author doesn’t establish that negative emotions cause worse health. In addition, the author doesn’t conclude that overcoming negative emotions will “eliminate” any health impairments, only that it will help one’s health improve.

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LSAT PrepTest 155 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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