LSAT 17, Logical Reasoning II, Q9, LSATHacks

LR Question 9 Explanation, by LSATHacks

QUESTION TEXT: Novice bird-watcher: I don’t know much about animal tracks…

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: These tracks must have been made by a bird.

REASONING: They have three toes in front and one in the back. Bird tracks often have three toes in front and four toes in back.

ANALYSIS: This argument is wrong because the bird-watcher hasn’t shown that birds are the only animals with that sort of track. There could be other animals that have three toes in front and one in back.

___________

1. Track is perfectly clear: a series of footprints left by an animal.
2. The argument says birds typically have four toes. It doesn’t matter if a few birds have a different number of toes. The tracks would still have been bird tracks if birds were the only animals that sometimes had that type of toe.
3. It doesn’t matter what kind of bird it was as long as it was a bird. His conclusion was just that it was some sort of bird.
4. CORRECT. Yes. If some other animal had that type of toe then the tracks aren’t necessarily from a bird.
5. Actually the bird-watcher’s evidence is entirely about birds in general.

Recap: The question begins with “Novice bird-watcher: I don’t know much about animal tracks”. It is a Flawed Reasoning question. Learn how to master LSAT Flaw questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.

Hi, I'm Graeme Blake

Founder of LSAThacks; I scored a 177 on the LSAT.

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