LSAT 23 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q24

LR Question 24 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: One of the great difficulties in establishing animal…

QUESTION TYPE: Must be True

FACTS:

1. For the purpose of animal rights, it’s hard to define “animal”. if we only use the argument that animals are living things.
2. Living things includes plants, which are not animals.
3. But if we use a narrow definition for “animal”, then we will exclude some things that are biologically classed as animals.

ANALYSIS: There are many ways to combine and rephrase these statements. Since there’s no single thing to look for, the best strategy is to know and understand the statements well, and keep them in mind when reading the answers. Then make sure you can justify your answer using the stimulus.

___________

1. We’re never told what we should do. Maybe no animals should be given rights. The author is just describing a difficulty faced by animal rights advocates.
2. We could give animals rights if we excluded plants. There is no thing that is both plant and animal. But we’d have to stop calling for rights for all “living things”.
3. Who knows? Maybe there were some attempts at giving animals rights that failed before they got to the stage of deciding what was an animal.
4. CORRECT. The stimulus suggests this is true. If we just use “living thing”, then we will include plants. So if we don’t include plants, we must be using a more comprehensive definition of animal than “living thing”.
5. This goes too far. We know that “living thing” is not enough on it’s own. But it’s not irrelevant either. We do care about animals at least in part because they are alive.

Recap: The question begins with “One of the great difficulties in establishing animal”. It is a Must be True question. Learn more about LSAT MBT questions in our guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning question types.