LSAT 139 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q25

LR Question 25 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Pauline: Some environmentalists claim that for the…

QUESTION TYPE: Agreement

ARGUMENTS: Pauline says that if the dams are breached, electricity costs will increase. Population and industry are growing.

Roger says the dams are already producing as much electricity as they can. We need new electricity sources.

ANALYSIS: You have to read in between the lines here.

When Pauline says that population and industry are growing, she means that the region will soon use more electricity. Otherwise we wouldn’t need new sources of electricity.

When Roger says we’’ll have to expand the dams, that can only be because electricity use is growing. Otherwise, the existing dams would be enough.

So they agree electricity use is likely to increase, or at least not decrease.

Note that this is an agreement question, not a disagreement question. There are two agreement questions on this test, whereas they are extremely rare on earlier tests. Read questions stems more carefully from now on when there are two speakers.

___________

1. Roger never says whether we can compensate for closing the dams.
2. CORRECT. See the explanation above.
3. Roger never mentions whether costs will rise, or whether we’ll get new capacity to keep costs down.
4. Roger says nothing about environmentalists.
5. Neither of them say whether or not we can decrease prices by finding new sources of electricity.