LSAT 155 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q7

LR Question 7 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Transportation official: I reject the claim that the ruts …

QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen

CONCLUSION: Studded snow tires, and not large trucks, are the cause of the ruts in the city’s roads.

REASONING: Many places have similar snowfall amounts and large truck traffic, but the only ones of those with similar ruts are those which allow studded snow tires.

ANALYSIS: Here, the official has shown that large trucks are not to blame. There are places with large trucks but not the same ruts. However, their conclusion is more than that. They claim that they have identified the source of the ruts, and that it’s studded snow tires.

The problem with this is that we’ve only looked at places with lots of large trucks. If we showed that other places with studded snow tires have similar ruts, even without large trucks, it would strengthen the argument.

___________

1. This is not relevant to whether the ruts in our city are caused by studded snow tires and not large trucks.
2. This doesn’t help the official’s argument. It shows a correlation between large truck traffic and ruts in the city’s roads.
3. CORRECT. This tells us that the ruts are also present in cities that have allowed studded snow tires but don’t have lots of large trucks. This is evidence for the claim that the ruts are caused by studded snow tires and not large trucks.
4. This doesn’t strengthen the official’s argument. We need something that links the ruts to studded snow tires, and this choice doesn’t even mention them.
5. Similar to A, it doesn’t matter which cities have allowed studded snow tires.

Recap: The question begins with “Transportation official: I reject the claim that the ruts “. It is a Strengthen question. Learn how to master LSAT Strengthen questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.