LSAT 101 | Section 3 | Logical Reasoning: Q23

LR Question 23 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Historians of North American architecture who have…

QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen

CONCLUSION: Narrower floorboards were a status symbol.

REASONING: Rich houses tended to have narrow floorboards, while poor houses didn’t.

ANALYSIS: This is possible. But there might be another reason for having narrow floorboards. Maybe they offered an (invisible) advantage, but cost more money.

___________

1. This doesn’t matter, as long as there were enough houses of each type for us to generalize from. Note that “more” is a very vague term: this could mean 0.001% more.
2. CORRECT. If narrow floorboards were less expensive, then maybe they were used to save money in big houses. Big houses need more floorboards. So it could have been cost rather than status that made people buy narrow floorboards.
3. Modern smaller houses tend to have fewer rooms, too – the houses are small. If rooms are of similar size, smaller houses are bound to have fewer rooms.
4. This doesn’t tell us much about why people use different types of floorboards. And “some” is an incredibly vague term – it could refer to two houses.
5. I’m not sure what houses with marble floors tell us about other houses that had wooden floorboards.

Recap: The question begins with “Historians of North American architecture who have”. It is a Strengthen question. Learn how to master LSAT Strengthen questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.