LSAT 126 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q3

LR Question 3 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: People with high blood pressure are generally more nervous…

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: Nervous and anxious people are likely to develop high blood pressure.

REASONING: People with high blood pressure are more likely to be nervous and anxious, so it must be the cause of high blood pressure.

ANALYSIS: This question treats correlation as causation, a common error on the LSAT. Just because two things occur together doesn’t mean one is the cause of the other. And even if one is the cause of the other, we don’t know which one. High blood pressure could cause people to feel anxious.

Firemen are often seen at the scene of fires. Does this mean they cause fires? (Maybe if they’re corrupt, and looking for more work….I guess)

You can never make a definite conclusion on the mere basis of a correlation.

___________

1. The stimulus does define hypertensive personality: someone nervous and anxious.
2. The argument doesn’t claim personality can’t change, only that if you happen to be nervous and anxious, you will likely suffer from high blood pressure.
3. It’s pretty clear these people exist; the first sentence tells us that people with high blood pressure generally are nervous and anxious. The use of the term “hypertensive personality” simply gives us a name for them.
4. CORRECT. Here we go. As I wrote above, it’s an error of assuming correlation means causation. All correlation can tell us is that there may be a relationship worth investigating.
5. This isn’t their error. They’re merely proposing these two traits as a cause; they are not claiming that there are no other traits which could also be a cause.

Recap: The question begins with “People with high blood pressure are generally more nervous”. It is a Flawed Reasoning question. Learn how to master LSAT Flaw questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.