LSAT 135 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q21

LR Question 21 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: A good way to get over one’s fear of an activity …

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: Doing something repeatedly is a good way to overcome your fear of it.

REASONING: Over 50% of people who have parachuted once say they were extremely scared. Less than 1% of people who have parachuted 10+ times say they’re scared.

ANALYSIS: The author sees a correlation:

• People who have parachuted once are much more likely to be scared.
• People who have parachuted many times are much less likely to be scared.

Then they conclude: doing something repeatedly makes people get over their fear.

But there’s another explanation.

What if the people who were least frightened to begin with are simply the ones who kept parachuting?

Imagine 100 people try parachuting.

• The 60 who are terrified never do it again.
• The 40 who enjoy it keep going.
• Ten years later, almost everyone with 10+ jumps isn’t afraid.

Did repeated jumping eliminate the fear? Not necessarily. Maybe the fearful people simply dropped out after the first jump.

The argument assumes that repeated exposure caused the reduced fear, when the difference could simply reflect who chooses to continue.

___________

1. The argument is only about repeatedly doing the same activity. It doesn’t generalize to different dangerous activities.
2. Intermediate cases might provide more information, but the flaw isn’t that they’re missing. The argument could still be flawed even with that data.
3. The argument never assumes this. It only compares people’s reported fear after different amounts of experience.
4. Whether parachuting is a good life choice is irrelevant. The argument is about what reduces fear, not whether reducing fear is worthwhile.
5. CORRECT. This is exactly the alternative explanation. Maybe the people with ten or more jumps aren’t fearless because they kept jumping. Maybe they kept jumping because they weren’t very frightened to begin with.