LR Question 18 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: The probability of avoiding heart disease is increased…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: You’ll be healthier if you avoid dairy.
REASONING: You’ll get fewer heart attacks if you avoid fat. You’re likely to eat less fat if you avoid dairy.
ANALYSIS: This is a bad argument. We only know that avoiding dairy can lead to some reduction in heart disease risk. But the professor did not prove that dairy products have no benefits for health. Health includes a lot of important things besides lack of heart attacks.
So even if we protect ourselves from heart attacks we might risk other problems by avoiding dairy.
___________
- CORRECT. Dairy might protect your health in other ways (calcium?) even if it slightly raises the risk of heart attack.
- The argument didn’t claim that avoiding dairy is the only way to avoid heart attacks.
- The argument did not say that we should avoid dairy. It was just attempting to make a factual statement about what would happen if we chose to eliminate dairy. Maybe dairy’s milky goodness is worth the risk of a heart attack.
- The evidence is definitely relevant. Dairy has fat, and fat can lead to heart disease (which is part of health.)
- The professor did not claim that we could avoid heart disease with any certainty. Avoiding dairy merely lets us reduce our risk.
More Resources for Flaw Questions
- Flaw drills: Use these to practice making examples of abstract flaws.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Flaw questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers flaw questions.
Because an explicit relationship between heart disease and health was not stated in the argument’s premises I thought that this was the gap and chose D. But of course this relationship is common sense.
In general do you think that in similar flaw questions we can be sure that this would not be the flaw if the connection is obvious as it was in this question, or if it is not questionable that they have that relationship?
No, that can sometimes be a flaw. For example, some supplement might lower heart disease risk slightly but increase risks of some other condition, lowering overall health. It’s important to look for these differences, even if they aren’t the answer in some cases.
Ugh, I think I was just a bit too nit-picky with the language. I thought the difference between “good health” and “avoiding heart disease” was too great to be considered synonymous and picked (D).
Ah, so: You can be in poor health for reasons other than heart disease. But, if you have heart disease you are by definition NOT in good health. If you lower the odds of getting heart disease, then other things equal you do increase your odds of being in good health.
The problem is that other things may not be equal. Cutting dairy could cause problems even if doing so lowers the odds of heart disease.
Anyway, to address your point: two things can be distinct, but that doesn’t make them unrelated. It is good to notice differences, but you have to think about how they overlap or don’t.
Note: This is an old comment but I wanted to clarify the point.
Graeme,
I got tricked on this question by the wording in the premises seeing a potential flaw/gap where there wasn’t really one. I thought “less likely to eat fat” wasn’t necessarily the same as “avoiding fat in ones diet” so picked E by mistake, thinking that what’s probable (less likely to eat fat) wouldn’t necessarily occur (avoiding fat). And missed the bigger issue with “good health”.
I’m finding this happens a lot. I see a mismatch in terms and tend to miss the larger flaw thinking the other mismatch is the major assumption. Any advice for this?
I’d say, allow yourself to use common sense. They’re the same concept (or rather, the second includes the first). You can ask yourself: “would EVERY person agree these are likely related”. If so, you can assume they are.
Increasingly, the LSAT tests your ability to notice when different words refer tot eh same concept. Changes in words aren’t necessarily flaws.