LSAT 156 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q3

LR Question 3 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: A recent study found that, surprisingly, the risk of …

QUESTION TYPE: Paradox

PARADOX: The risk of serious injuries is higher in industries that are monitored by government safety inspectors than ones that aren’t.

ANALYSIS: If it has a lot of safety inspectors, you would think it’s less dangerous right?

But think about why this situation isn’t really that crazy. Let’s use two examples: construction vs. accounting.

Construction has a higher risk of serious injuries and is more monitored by safety inspectors.

It’s more monitored because it’s more dangerous!

___________

1. This makes things more confusing. If inspectors train workers, we’d expect lower injury rates.
2. Sure, so some places don’t always follow the rules. This still doesn’t explain the higher injury rates.
3. CORRECT. If only high-risk industries are monitored, then it makes sense they have higher injury rates.
4. This also makes it more confusing. If workers are more careful when they’re expected, why are they still being injured?
5. So there’s some variance between equally monitored industries. Great, but we only care about the difference between monitored vs. “not so” monitored.