LSAT 157 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q9

LR Question 9 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Psychologists report that children in nine-month schools…

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: The twelve-month schedule is preferred for academic learning.

REASONING: Psychologists have reported that children in nine-month schools forget a significant amount of content over the summer break.

ANALYSIS: The author says 12-month schools are better for academics because kids forget things over the summer. Their idea is that taking away the summer break will deprive the kids of the opportunity to forget things. However, the author never shows us that kids at a 12-month school remember more than the 9-month school kids.

If this is giving you trouble, here’s a similar argument. “Most of my soy beans in my garden get eaten by birds. If I want to maximize the number of beans, I should plant green beans instead, because then there will be no soy beans for the birds to eat”. I haven’t actually shown that changing the beans means the birds won’t eat my beans. Similarly, the author hasn’t shown that putting kids in more school improves their recollection of what they learned. It’s possible that kids in 12-month school don’t remember as much!

___________

1. There is an unsubstantiated assumption, but the author isn’t relying on it – it’s their conclusion! The flaw is deeper than this.
2. While the reasoning does rely on a distinction (that distinction being the presence or absence of summer vacation), that distinction is not arbitrary – the problem is just that they haven’t given us a reason to reach their conclusion. An example of an arbitrary distinction would be that janitors at 12-month schools have higher salaries.
3. CORRECT. The author is assuming that only kids at 9-month schools forget what they’ve learned. But they haven’t actually shown us that!
4. It doesn’t matter whether the data is representative of all children as a whole. Representing the kids at the 9-month school is enough – if it also had data about the 12-month school.
5. The author’s view is not rejected in the course of their argument.

Recap: The question begins with “Psychologists report that children in nine-month schools”. It is a Flawed Reasoning question. Learn how to master LSAT Flaw questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.