LSAT 126 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q1

LR Question 1 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Carl is clearly an incompetent detective. He has solved…

QUESTION TYPE: Weaken

CONCLUSION: Carl is clearly an incompetent detective.

REASONING: He has only solved one of his 25 cases in the past three years.

ANALYSIS: This argument “feels” correct at first, but there could be something deeper going on. If Carl isn’t solving anything, why do they keep giving him cases?

There are many possible explanations. Maybe Carl is an experienced detective, and they only give him extremely difficult cases. Maybe Carl is quite competent, but hates his boss, and so he stopped trying. We need more information to evaluate Carl’s competence.

___________

1. CORRECT. This weakens it. Carl only has extremely difficult cases, which gives an alternate explanation for his failure rate.
2. This only shows that he was a good neighborhood police officer; it doesn’t let us know whether he is a good detective. They are two different skill sets.
3. This actually strengthens the argument, showing Carl had many useful resources and yet still failed.
4. This doesn’t tell us much. It could be evidence that he is incompetent, or it could mean there is a reason he is kept on as a detective despite solving few cases. It doesn’t weaken the argument.
5. This interesting statistic about the police department unfortunately tells us nothing about Carl’s skills as a detective.

Recap: The question begins with “Carl is clearly an incompetent detective He has solved”. It is a Weaken question. Learn how to master LSAT Weaken questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.