LSAT 139 | Section 2 | Reading Comprehension: Q7

RC Question 7 Explanation

DISCUSSION: Before doing a question like this, you should skim paragraph two and refresh yourself on what it says. That way, you’ll be prepared to spot the right answer, and can more easily dismiss the wrong answers.

Skim, not read. You should be able to skim over the material in 7-12 seconds, especially if you already have a good structural map of the passage. This 7-12 second skim can easily save you 30-60 seconds of staring blankly at the answers.

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1. CORRECT. Lines 19-23 support this. Similarly priced houses would only result in segregation if people tend to buy the most expensive house they can afford.
    
   If people buy houses cheaper than they can afford, then a neighborhood of $200,000 houses might have considerable diversity.
    
   (Some millionaires might live in such a neighborhood, as well as some people who could barely afford a $200,000 house).
2. This goes against lines 19-23. Suburbs aren’t economically diverse. The passage doesn’t say why all houses in suburbs are similar. But zoning creates suburbs, so presumably zoning has something to do with it. Zoning certainly doesn’t have the opposite effect of creating diversity.
3. This isn’t supported. Lines 30-35 do say that motorists behave anti-socially, but we have no evidence that pedestrians resent motorists.
4. Rubbish. People drive because suburbs force them to. See lines 25-30. So they would do so whether or not they knew of the health benefits of walking.
5. This isn’t supported. Lines 19-23 say houses in suburbs are similar, but they don’t say why this is so. Perhaps it is preference, but it is also quite possibly done for reasons of zoning or cost efficiency.