LSAT 23 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q21

LR Question 21 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: The cities of Oldtown and Spoonville are the same in…

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: Spoonville must have health problems caused by crowding.

REASONING: Oldtown and Spoonville have the same population density (area divided by population). Oldtown has health problems caused by crowding.

ANALYSIS: This is a bad argument. There might be easy ways to fix problems caused by crowding. Maybe Spoonville has fixed them even though Oldville hasn’t.

___________

1. Actually, the argument says that living conditions (crowding) did cause the health problems.
2. The argument tells us about both the size of the population and the geographic area of the city.
3. Life expectancy isn’t mentioned. It’s irrelevant. You can have serious health problems that don’t lower your life expectancy.
4. The argument never said whether the problems can be treated or not.
5. CORRECT. The most abstract answer is sometimes right. This just says that if you have two cities with the same density, one can be healthy and one unhealthy. There are other factors that affect health, apart from population density.

Recap: The question begins with “The cities of Oldtown and Spoonville are the same in”. It is a Flawed Reasoning question. Learn how to master LSAT Flaw questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.