LSAT 157 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q17

LR Question 17 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: The average tax refund received by taxpayers who use …

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Parallel Reasoning

CONCLUSION: If you want a large refund, you should use a tax prep service.

REASONING: The average tax refund received by someone who used a tax prep service is higher than the average refund received by someone who didn’t.

ANALYSIS: This is a classic correlation-causation error. The author assumes that the people who used the services received higher refunds because of the service, but there is no evidence for that. It could be that people who are already receiving big refunds are more likely to use the services.

We want to find an answer that makes the same mistake, assuming that because two things are correlated, that one must be causing the other. “People who do X have a higher Y, so doing X makes Y higher”.

___________

1. CORRECT. See above – this is exactly the same error as the stimulus.
2. This is not the same as the stimulus. This error is in assuming that all companies want to increase efficiency so bad that they would establish an in-house print shop.
3. This is a different error. This answer assumes that because X causes both Y and Z, that Y must also cause Z.
4. This is also not the error from the stimulus. This choice is not concluding that one thing causes another.
5. This does not match the error in the stimulus. The conclusion here isn’t inferring causation form correlation; causation is part of the premise.

Recap: The question begins with “The average tax refund received by taxpayers who use “. It is a Flawed Parallel Reasoning question. Learn how to master LSAT Flawed Parallel questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.