LSAT 6 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q17

LR Question 17 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: From a book review: The authors blithely claim that…

QUESTION TYPE: Method of Reasoning

CONCLUSION: The author was incorrect that there are three ways to store electricity: heat, electricity or kinetic energy.

REASONING: The author cannot think of how to store energy as electricity, and any student of physics could tell you that energy can be stored as chemical, gravitational or nuclear energy.

ANALYSIS: All of the wrong answer choices depend on a misunderstanding of the meaning of the words “basic” and “effective” as used in the stimulus.

When the author says there is no effective way to store energy as heat, they mean: it is not possible to store energy as heat. They do not mean that “there are ways but they don’t work at all.”

And when the author says “three basic methods of storage” it should be taken to mean “essentially there are three methods of storage.” You might subdivide those three categories, but all forms of energy storage could be fit into one of those three categories.

In terms of their method, the book review claims that not all three categories are correct (electrical doesn’t work) and also that there are other categories. If true, these claims would disprove the idea that heat, electricity or kinetic energy are the only three ways to store energy.

___________

1. This argument has nothing to do with how basic or advanced different storage methods are. It is about the total amount of storage methods.
2. CORRECT. This is it. The author notes that there are other ways to store energy apart from the ways given.
3. Same as A. This question is about the total amount of storage methods. Whether the methods are effective is a different question.
4. Same as A. The author only mentioned effective to indicate that heat is not an actual method of energy storage (to his knowledge.)
5. The author most certainly did not claim that all energy storage methods are equally effective.

Recap: The question begins with “From a book review: The authors blithely claim that”. It is a Method of Reasoning question. Learn how to master LSAT Method of Reasoning questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.