LSAT 17, Logical Reasoning II, Q19, LSATHacks

QUESTION TEXT: Of all the houses in the city’s historic district, the house…

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Parallel Reasoning

CONCLUSION: The Tyler house must be the most famous house in the city.

REASONING: The Tyler house is the most famous house in the historic district. The historic district is the most famous district in the city.

ANALYSIS: This is a bad argument because the most famous house does not have to be located in the most famous district.

Manhattan is just about the richest part of the United States. But the richest man in America (Warren Buffet) doesn’t live there.

It would be a good argument if it had said that the most famous houses were in the historic district.

Abstractly the flaw is assuming that the biggest example of something must occur where things are on average the biggest.

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1. This is a good argument. The tallest peaks are in the coastal range and Mount Williams is the tallest peak in the coastal range.
2. This is a bad argument. There could be some other unlucky place with more lung cancer even though the smoking rate is lower. But it doesn’t make the same error as the stimulus. They would have done that had they said that the person who smoked the most must live in Greene County (or something like that.)
3. This is a good argument. The Coleman children are the oldest and Susan Coleman is the oldest Coleman child.
4. This is incredibly close. If answer choice E wasn’t there it would be the right answer. But it’s slightly different. It says that the harbor area has the most fish shops. It should have said that the harbor area has the most exotic selection of fish of any neighborhood.
5. CORRECT. Here we go. Oakland roses are the prettiest flowers in the garden. The garden is the most beautiful garden. But…there could be some prettier flowers grown in another garden that is uglier on the whole.

Recap: The question begins with “Of all the houses in the city’s historic district, the house”. It is a Flawed Parallel Reasoning question. Learn how to master LSAT Flawed Parallel questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.

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