LSAT 129 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q8

LR Question 8 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: A psychiatrist argued that there is no such thing as

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Parallel Reasoning

CONCLUSION: The psychiatrist says that multiple personality disorder doesn’t exist.

REASONING: The psychiatrist has never seen a case of multiple personality disorder.

ANALYSIS: There are two flaws in the psychiatrist’s argument:

The psychiatrist ignores that she hasn’t seen all cases. If multiple personality disorder is rare then it might exist even though she hasn’t seen it.

The psychiatrist might have seen multiple personality disorder but misdiagnosed it as something else.

The correct answer will have both of these flaws. You can easily eliminate answers that don’t express certainty in the conclusion: the psychiatrist said that multiple personality disorder does not exist.

___________

1. The conclusion doesn’t match. Anton says deaths from colds are rare. To match, Anton should have said they are impossible.
2. The conclusion doesn’t match. Lyla should have said that groundhogs are definitely not in the area.
3. Sauda should have said that therapy never works. Her conclusion that therapy is not warranted is right, but her evidence doesn’t match.
4. The conclusion just says “probably”. The original argument was certain.
5. CORRECT. This matches:
   1. It’s possible that there are deer even though Jerod hasn’t seen any.
   2. It’s possible that Jerod saw deer but misidentified them as something else.