LSAT 102 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q12

LR Question 12 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: The school principal insisted that student failures…

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Parallel Reasoning

CONCLUSION: Teaching got better.

REASONING: Grades improved. The principle thought failing grades were caused by bad teaching.

ANALYSIS: We don’t have any evidence that poor teaching causes the bad grades, or that bad grades were fixed by better teaching. We don’t even have evidence that teaching improved.

There could have been some other factor. Maybe the students weren’t sleeping well, but class times were moved back an hour and so students came to school better rested.

The structure is: one possible reason for an observed effect is assumed to be the cause, without evidence.

___________

1. This sounds like the nutritionist may have been right. We at least have evidence the team members stopped overeating.
2. As with A, here at least we have evidence that workers were given fewer tasks.
3. This is a bad argument, but of a different type. The nutritionist isn’t proposing a cause for the weight gain – they’re saying it’s imaginary. Then we never find out if the weigh charts showed the team members were right or wrong about weight gain.
4. CORRECT. The situation improved: complaints stopped. The manager assumed it was because workers had more to do, but there’s no evidence that workers were given any more tasks.
5. Like A and B, this at least shows that the proposed cause stopped at the same time the proposed effect disappeared.

Recap: The question begins with “The school principal insisted that student failures”. It is a Flawed Parallel Reasoning question. Learn more about LSAT Flawed Parallel questions in our guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning question types.