LSAT 105 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q21

LR Question 21 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Some people have been promoting a new herbal mixture as…

QUESTION TYPE: Method of Reasoning

CONCLUSION: The cold sufferer thinks the remedy won’t work.

REASONING: If it worked, surely almost everyone would use it and get better. But many people have colds and don’t use it.

ANALYSIS: The argument tries to show the following:

If the medicine works ➞ almost everyone would take it.

But many people don’t take the medicine, so therefore it doesn’t work. That describes answer choice A.

If the claim were true, then almost everyone would take it (a consequence.) But that consequence is false, so the claim must be false.

The argument is wrong for two reasons. First, it’s missing all of the necessary assumptions from question 20. Second, you can’t use a “most” statement to claim that “almost all” people want something.

___________

1. CORRECT. I hesitated to pick this, because it sounds like a good method (and the argument is a bad argument.) But I guess it works since the argument is incomplete. It is what the argument attempted to do.
    
   If it were true that the mixture worked, then everyone would be taking it. But everyone isn’t taking it. So the consequence (“almost everyone taking it”) of the claim (“it works”) is false.
2. Not quite. The argument hasn’t established what the public thinks about the mixture. It’s only shown that they aren’t using the mixture, but not why.
3. The argument hasn’t presented a necessary condition. The mixture could be ineffective even if everyone used it.
4. The cold sufferer is not talking about a specific instance. He is talking about all people who have colds.
5. The cold sufferer didn’t say that taking the mixture would make colds worse.

Recap: The question begins with “Some people have been promoting a new herbal mixture as”. It is a Method of Reasoning question. Learn how to master LSAT Method of Reasoning questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.