LR Question 22 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Researchers have found that children in large families…
QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen
CONCLUSION: Exposure to germs makes you less likely to get allergies.
REASONING: Children with many siblings have fewer allergies.
ANALYSIS: This argument has established a possible cause. But they’ve only shown a correlation.
We can strengthen the idea that germ exposure reduces allergies either by eliminating alternatives or by showing that germ exposure works in another context (i.e. not in families).
___________
- This sounds good, but it’s not very compelling. A century is a long time. There may have been other factors that caused allergies to increase.
Also, notice that this answer didn’t tell us what has happened in countries where the average number of children did not decrease. Maybe those countries also have an increase in allergies!
We would need to know that allergies increased faster in countries with larger declines in the number of average children per family. - This weakens the argument. It shows an alternate cause for the lower number of allergies in large families.
- This is just a couple of useless facts about allergies and germs. We’re trying to explain the rate of allergies. We’re not trying to decide if germs are a good thing.
- This doesn’t tell us anything about small families vs. large families. And it slightly weakens the argument by presenting an alternate cause for allergies: genetics.
- CORRECT. Daycare has lots of children, and therefore germs. This is a warranted assumption from outside knowledge – no one would disagree with it. So this answer supports the idea that germ exposure reduces allergies.
Recap: The question begins with “Researchers have found that children in large families”. It is a Strengthen question. To practice more Strengthen questions, have a look at the LSAT Questions by Type page.
More Resources for Strengthen Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Strengthen questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers strengthen questions.
I feel like you could cross out A for a more clear reason: Answer A is wrong because it doesn’t provide any support for the hypothesis. It just provides further support for the findings in the stimulus (that allergies are linked to family size). The correct answer choice is supposed to support the conclusion: the hypothesis that increased germ exposure in infancy is what accounts for the decrease in allergies. E directly reinforces that idea.
Yes, but the idea is that children in larger families are going to be exposed to more germs in infancy than children in smaller families, so you could still try to support (A) as the correct answer choice by saying that it exemplifies the idea that smaller families = less exposure to germs in infancy = more allergies.
The real issues with (A) are the ones that Graeme has noted above.