LSAT 117 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q14

LR Question 14 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: The economy is doing badly …

QUESTION TYPE: Most Strongly Supported

FACTS:

• The real estate market has been in a slump, and car sales are very low.
• Either one of these alone could still be consistent with a healthy economy.
• But both happening together makes it likely that the economy is unhealthy.

ANALYSIS: One weak market by itself doesn’t prove the whole economy is bad. But two weak markets together make a bad economy likely.

So we can infer the reverse: if the economy was good, it wouldn’t be likely that both real estate and car sales were bad at the same time.

___________

1. The stimulus explicitly says either one phenomenon alone could still be consistent with a healthy economy. So low car sales alone don’t make a bad economy likely.
2. This reverses the reasoning. The stimulus says two bad markets make a bad economy likely. It doesn’t say a bad economy must involve one of these two specific markets being unhealthy.
3. A healthy real estate market alone wouldn’t prove the whole economy is likely healthy. The stimulus only says the combination of two slumps is strong evidence of a bad economy.
4. CORRECT. If the economy is healthy, then we wouldn’t expect both real estate and car sales to be in a slump together.
5. This also reverses the reasoning. The author uses bad real estate and bad car sales as evidence of a bad economy. But that doesn’t mean every bad economy must have both of those problems.