LSAT 118 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q20

LR Question 20 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Polling data reveal that an overwhelming majority of nine-year-olds …

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Parallel Reasoning

CONCLUSION: There’s little to no link between recognizing cigarette brand logos and smoking.

REASONING: Most 9-year-olds can recognize cigarette logos. Yet among the 9-year-olds who recognize those logos, fewer than 1% smoke.

ANALYSIS: How likely are people to smoke at the age of 9? Probably not very likely.

Suppose:

• 70% of kids recognize logos.
• 0.5% of kids smoke.

So, if you poll them currently, it seems like familiarity with cigarette brands doesn’t influence smoking.

Now imagine you poll them 7 years later, when they’re 16 years old.

Maybe at that point, those kids who recognized the logos are way more likely to smoke.

So the argument is dismissing a possible connection by looking only at whether the effect is visible right now among the exposed group.

The concern isn’t necessarily: Nine-year-olds recognize logos and immediately start smoking.

The concern is: Early familiarity with cigarette branding may influence later smoking behavior.

So saying “less than 1% of 9-year-olds who recognize the logos smoke” doesn’t prove there is no connection. They are 9. The possible effect may show up later.

Since it’s a Flawed Parallel Reasoning question, we want to turn this into a general structure we can look for in the answer choices.

The pattern here is:

• Many people are exposed to X.
• We do not currently see much of the feared effect Y among them.
• Therefore X has little or no connection to Y.

___________

1. CORRECT. This is the same flawed structure. The concern is about the long-term effect of mercury exposure on dolphins. But the evidence only says that during a 3-month observation period, exposed dolphins showed no effect. That doesn’t prove the concern is unfounded – the harm may appear later.
2. This isn’t actually flawed. It’s just saying kids aren’t likely to try to achieve their dreams, because most parents discourage them from it.
3. This infers effectiveness from what dentists recommend. The flaw, if any, is treating expert recommendations as proof of comparative effectiveness.
    
   Note: Generally the LSAT treats experts as trustworthy. And since this conclusion says “probably”, I’d venture to say C isn’t really flawed.
4. Wrong flaw. This uses lifespan as the only measure of good health. The stimulus doesn’t use a bad measure of smoking (e.g. only lung cancer). It measures smoking directly but too early.
5. No flaw here either. This just says failing one test of political knowledge is insignificant because people pass another, more important, test.