LSAT 108 | Section 3 | Logical Reasoning: Q6

LR Question 6 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Shortly after the power plant opened …

QUESTION TYPE: Paradox – EXCEPT

ANALYSIS: After the plant started dumping wastewater into the river, anglers caught fewer bass downstream.

Four answers are going to explain this drop. Maybe there are fewer bass, they moved away, or fewer anglers are fishing there.

One answer doesn’t explain the drop in bass caught. That’s the correct answer.

___________

1. If the wastewater attracted predators of bass, those predators might reduce the bass population.
2. If the water got warmer and bass moved to cooler water elsewhere, there would be fewer bass downstream.
3. CORRECT. This would likely have the opposite effect. If access improved and more anglers started fishing downstream, we’d expect more bass to be caught, not fewer. So this doesn’t explain the decrease.
4. If the area became noisier and fewer anglers wanted to fish there, then fewer bass would be caught even if the bass population stayed the same.
5. If the wastewater destroyed some bass habitat, fewer bass would live downstream.