LR Question 23 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: The fact that people who exercise vigorously are sick less often…
QUESTION TYPE: Parallel Reasoning
CONCLUSION: It is not proven that vigorous exercise prevents illness.
REASONING: Whether we decide to exercise depends on our health.
ANALYSIS: This is a good argument. The healthier we are, the more likely we are to exercise. Or the more likely we are to exercise, the healthier we are. We don’t know which is which.
___________
- CORRECT. Yes. Reading could cause verbal skills, but verbal skills could also cause reading.
- This is a decent argument, but totally off-base. We need to show that a cause isn’t clear between two phenomena.
- You might dress according to how your friends do, but still like the style.
- This has a similar structure, but we know that height does confer an advantage in basketball. In the stimulus the argument is plausible, and the same goes for answer choice A. This is ridiculous.
- This is a good argument, but it’s not the same thing. We’re talking about which of two phenomena cause each other, while this has a third cause.
Recap: The question begins with “The fact that people who exercise vigorously are sick less often”. It is a Parallel Reasoning question. Learn how to master LSAT Parallel questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.
More Resources for Parallel Reasoning Questions
- Conditional Reasoning Article: Learn about conditional statements.
- LR Diagrams Guide: Learn how to draw LR diagrams.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Parallel Reasoning questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers parallel reasoning questions.
I believe the flaw lies in answer D is not that it contradicts to our common sense, since that common sense is not what LR going to test us. Actually I think the logic structures of the text and answer D are slightly different.
The text tells us “people who exercise sick less often” doesn’t prove “exercise prevent illness”, which stands for a causation (if E, then NOT ILL), for E is actually an indicator of people’s state of health (in fact it’s NOT ILL that leads to E).
But the answer D has nothing to do with the causation, for it just says “HEIGHT is an ADVANTAGE in basketball”, which is more likely a correlation(does the height guarantee any outcome?); and also there’s no reverse part of it (in fact it’s because the ADVANCE leads to HEIGHT? Not mentioned.)
You’re right that they don’t reverse D, which is a good catch. That said, the LSAT definitely does use common sense as a factor in parallel questions and elsewhere. I unfortunately don’t have an example on hand, but I’ve definitely seen them parallel the precise way in which an argument is dumb. Or, in this case, not dumb.
If everyone would agree with something, you can generally use it when reasoning about an argument or answer. And it would be very foolish to deny that height is an advantage in basketball.