LSAT 106 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q13

LR Question 13 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: People who say that Dooney County is flat are…

QUESTION TYPE: Parallel Reasoning

CONCLUSION: Dooney county is not flat.

REASONING: On flat land, farmers won’t build terraces to prevent soil erosion. Yet Dooney county farms have many terraces.

ANALYSIS: Are there other reasons that people build terraces, apart from preventing soil erosion? Maybe terraces look nice.

The author only proved that people won’t build terraces to prevent soil erosion. They might build them for other reasons.

Abstractly, the flaw is assuming that one reason for something is the only possible reason.

___________

1. This sounds like a sensible argument, though technically, there’s no evidence that dark blue is better than any non-white color.
2. This isn’t even an argument. There’s no conclusion.
3. CORRECT. This argument ignores that there are many reasons to take medication. Maybe Jack is taking them for heart health, not insomnia.
    
   Likewise, the stimulus ignored that there are many possible reasons to build terraces.
4. This is a bad argument. There are at least two possible solutions: not going grocery shopping when hungry, or exercising more to lose weight.
5. This is a bad argument. There’s no proof that going out often is the only way to have many friends.