LSAT 108 | Section 3 | Logical Reasoning: Q10

LR Question 10 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Many people joke about Friday the thirteenth …

QUESTION TYPE: Weaken

CONCLUSION: A lot of people would rather disrupt their travel plans than risk flying on an unlucky day (Friday the 13th).

REASONING: On Friday the 13th, about 17% of people scheduled to fly canceled or didn’t show up. This rate was higher than on any other day in that year.

ANALYSIS: The author observes a correlation:

Friday the 13th → unusually high no-show rate.

Then concludes:

Superstition caused the no-shows.

The obvious way to weaken is to provide an alternative explanation for why so many people missed their flights.

___________

1. If flyers are generally less superstitious than the population, that might make the conclusion somewhat less likely, but it doesn’t explain why the no-show rate specifically spiked on Friday the 13th.
2. Less than 5% of people say they believe Friday the 13th is unlucky. But people don’t always report their true beliefs, and some people may act cautiously despite not professing the superstition. Also, “significant percentage” is vague. This doesn’t explain the 17% figure.
3. CORRECT. This gives us a completely different reason why people may have canceled or missed flights: weather. So the unusually high no-show rate may have had nothing to do with superstition.
4. The fact that traffic wasn’t lighter doesn’t tell us much. People could have canceled flights and still driven somewhere else, stayed home, or changed plans in other ways.
5. Airline workers’ absentee rates don’t tell us why passengers didn’t show up. Passengers and airline workers may behave very differently.