LR Question 23 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Garbage dumps do not harm wildlife…
QUESTION TYPE: Weaken – Exception
CONCLUSION: Garbage dumps don’t hurt any animals.
REASONING: Baboons that eat garbage grow faster and have more children than baboons that don’t.
ANALYSIS: This is a bad argument. It makes a claim about all animals but only provides evidence about baboons.
Further, the fact that baboons grow and reproduce faster doesn’t mean they’re healthier.
___________
- This explains a lot. It isn’t necessarily the garbage that makes the baboons grow faster: it could be a natural difference between the species.
- Yikes. Baboons reproduce more, but they die young. That’s not so good.
- That doesn’t sound healthy for those baboons.
- CORRECT. So? We have no idea why there are more hyenas. It might not have anything to do with garbage.
- That’s not healthy for the baboons. More births aren’t so great if more of the births are also defective.
Recap: The question begins with “Garbage dumps do not harm wildlife”. It is a Weaken question. Learn how to master LSAT Weaken questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.
More Resources for Weaken Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Weaken questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers weaken questions.
Hello,
Could I argue that D represents an instance where consumption of garbage DOES harm wildlife in that the proliferation of baboons due to sustenance from garbage makes Hyenas more likely to target them due to their increased population and higher caloric content? I understand this is an indirect way of showing how garbage does harm wildlife as the consumption of garbage is not directly endangering the baboons, but is it valid to extrapolate to such a high degree?
In essence, I am confused as to how many logical steps (derivations from premise in answer choice) one can take in order to effectively rule out wrong / choose right answer choice. Is assuming “the consumption of garbage by baboons makes them more likely to be eaten” too derivative, and hence I cannot make this assumption? If so, is there a general rule of thumb I can remember in order to know the degree to which answer choices should be taken at face-value (don’t overthink it)?
Thank you
It seems like you’ve made quite a few assumptions that aren’t supported by the stimulus.
Your line of reasoning moved from some baboons on the reserve eating garbage (which we know) to the proliferation of baboons. We don’t know that there’s an increase in their population; we only know that the ones that eat garbage mature faster than the ones who don’t. This does not guarantee an increase: what if the garbage-eating ones only lived for 5 years while the non-garbage eating ones lived for 85? That would cancel out the effects of higher numbers of offspring. So you cannot assume there’s an increase in the population.
Similarly, there’s no textual support that these baboons have higher caloric content. All we know is that (1) garbage-eating baboons mature faster, and (2) they have more offspring.
D does not allow us to infer how, or if, the increase in the population of hyenas is related to baboons. That’s exactly why it’s the only answer choice that doesn’t cast doubt on the argument. It doesn’t actually impact the argument at all: it doesn’t tell us about the impact of garbage on baboons or wildlife. D doesn’t give us any direct reason to believe that the doubling of the population of the hyenas has anything to do with garbage.
A good rule of thumb is to stay as close to the direct effects or immediate implications of the argument as possible. The LSAT allows you to make very reasonable/obvious inferences, but this goes beyond that. If the argument doesn’t give you strong textual evidence to link two ideas together, that’s likely a sign that you’ve gone too far.
Another thing to keep in mind in cases like this, is that the other choices are very directly undermining the argument. They are clearly linked to what’s discussed in the stimulus and provide evidence against the conclusion. So if all you’re left with is D, you should not be overthinking and adding assumptions to attempt to criticize it. But it’s obviously good that you want to understand what’s going on!
Hope that helped clarify.