LR Question 14 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Advertisement: A leading economist has determined that…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: You’ll get a higher paying job if you buy a laptop!
REASONING: People who have laptops tend to earn more.
ANALYSIS: This is a chicken and egg problem. It could be true that laptops cause wealth. But it seems more likely that rich people can better afford to buy laptops.
___________
- We have information about all everyone. All laptop owners and people who don’t own laptops.
- This isn’t circular reasoning. The study is given as evidence.
- CORRECT. We don’t know if wealth causes laptops or laptops cause wealth.
- The conclusion could be true. It just doesn’t have to be.
- The conclusion is about the past. Read it again: “led to a higher paying job.”
Recap: The question begins with “Advertisement: A leading economist has determined that”. It is a Flawed Reasoning question. Learn more about LSAT Flaw questions in our guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning question types.
More Resources for Flaw Questions
- Flaw drills: Use these to practice making examples of abstract flaws.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Flaw questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers flaw questions.
While reading this question, I noted the bad causation. However, when reading C (the correct answer), I found it quite confusing, specifically the part that says “the first thing’s having caused the second.”
The first thing mentioned in the stimulus is laptops, the 2nd is wealth. Then in the conclusion it’s the same. So I eliminated this answer because that just is saying there is evidence that the conclusion is true. Was this too nitpicky? Any more tips/explanation on this? Thanks!
This is super tricky. The explanation is that the first thing and the second thing refer to the first and second things mentioned IN THE ANSWER.
I had to think about this for a while. Let’s rephrase C to make it clearer:
It concludes that high paying jobs (first thing) were caused by laptops (second thing) even though the first thing (high paying jobs) could be why people bought laptops (second thing)
Hope that makes sense! Grammatically first thing and second thing have to refer to what was mentioned in the same sentence, rather than the order they were mentioned elsewhere.