LR Question 11 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Researchers have discovered that caffeine can be…
QUESTION TYPE: Must be True
FACTS:
- Caffeine can be just as addictive as other drugs.
- Some people find that they become depressed, drowsy or irritable without caffeine.
- As many people consume caffeine as consume any one of all other drugs.
ANALYSIS: The third point is the one most likely to confuse people. It means that if 1 million people drink beer then at least as many (1 million or more) consume caffeine. There is no drug with more users than caffeine.
Of course, there could be other drugs with exactly the same number of users as caffeine.
On a side note, I sometimes replace key terms like “psychoactive substances” with simpler words like “drugs.” This is intentional. A lot of people get hung up on specific words and they think it is a very big deal if the LSAT switches words.
It isn’t. What matters instead is whether the concept has shifted. Since psychoactive substance and drug are synonyms then it doesn’t matter which term is used. This applies in general to all LSAT questions.
___________
- Close but not quite. The stimulus talked about how many people consume caffeine. But we don’t know how many are physically addicted to caffeine.
- We only know this is true of coffee. Cocaine withdrawal might only produce one symptom.
- Possible, but this doesn’t have to be true. All we know is that all psychoactive substances are addictive.
- We only know this might be true of coffee. We don’t know about other psychoactive substances.
- CORRECT. No psychoactive substance has more consumers than caffeine does. They might have an equal amount, but not more.
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I think this was a poor question to begin with. A, even though I know now E is the answer, A still seems like the best answer. Answer A never talks about any percentage. Superficially, it says that no other drug is consumed more than is caffeine, which is what we should be looking for in the answer. E introduces alcohol , so we are to make an even bigger generalization based on this ONE other substance? No more people consume caffeine because just as many, maybe less, consume alcohol? I don’t see how the two logically connect. We want to show that some might consume an equal amount compared to other substances, granted, but how is only saying that no one consumes more than caffeine wrong? What would it matter if they consume just as much? It seems irrelevant once you’ve shown they don’t consume more. Idk, I dislike curve ball questions.
Yes, thanks for pointing that out about (A)! The page has been updated.
That being said, we can still eliminate (A) on the grounds that it doesn’t make a comparative claim about caffeine consumption, but about the number of people who are physically addicted to caffeine. It’s a tempting answer choice, but this subtle term shift between consumption and physical addiction is significant. Even if the number of people who consume caffeine is the same or greater than the number who consume other addictive psychoactive substances, that doesn’t necessarily mean that a greater or equal number are actually physically addicted.
I see, thanks for the clarification.