LSAT 55 – Section 3 – Question 11

LSAT 55 - Section 3 - Question 11

October 2008

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT55 S3 Q11
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
A
3%
157
B
86%
163
C
10%
157
D
0%
151
E
1%
152
129
141
153
 +Easier 144.364 +SubsectionEasier

The question stem reads: The biologist’s argument is most vulnerable to criticism on which one of the following grounds? This is a Flaw question.

The biologist begins by describing how many paleontologists suggest that the difficulties of the ice age were a cause of the evolution of the human brain. The biologist concludes those palentologists are wrong. In other words, the ice age was not responsible for the evolution of the human brain. As evidence, the biologist cites that many animal species survived the ice age with no evolutionary changes to their brain.

The biologist has hypothesized that the ice age was not repsonsbile for the evolution of the human brain. If we were to construct an ideal experiment to test this hypothesis, what kind of subjects would you want to use? You would want to use human brains! However, the biologist instead uses animals brains as evidence. The question is, “Are humans and animals” the same? Maybe. Maybe not. The biologist’s argument relies on the assumption that humans and animals would respond to the evolutionary pressures of the ice age in the same way. So let’s look for an answer choice that distinguishes how animal brains and human brains would respond to the ice age.

Answer Choice (A) is incorrect. The biologist does not suggest that the ice age was sufficient or necessary to produce brain evolution in humans or animals.

Correct Answer Choice (B) draws the distinction between humans and animals that we are looking for. The biologist fails to consider the possibility that the ice age could have produced the evolution of the brain in humans without producing the evolution of the brain in other species.

Answer Choice (C) is incorrect. The argument is not about whether the ice age was necessary for producing changes in the brains of humans or animals. The argument is about whether the ice age was sufficient to bring about changes in the brains of humans and animals.

Answer Choice (D) is incorrect. The biologist never presumes that humans had a more difficult time during the ice age than animals.

Answer Choice (E) is incorrect. The biologist does not presume that the ice age was causally responsible for the evolution of human brains. He concludes that the ice age was not casusualy responsible for the evolution of human brains.

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LSAT PrepTest 55 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logic Games

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