LSAT 135 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q1

LR Question 1 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: In a recent study of more than 400 North American…

QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen

CONCLUSION: A diet may not have to be extremely low in fat in order to protect the heart.

REASONING: Two diets were compared. A moderate fat mediterranean diet, and a low fat western diet. The mediterranean diet produced a significantly lower risk of heart attack.

ANALYSIS: The risk of heart attack from the Mediterranean diet could still be high, even if the Mediterranean diet gives you a lower risk.

This question makes an error between a comparison (e.g. higher) and an absolute quality (e.g. high). For instance, it’s significantly safer to jump out of a two story window, compared to shooting yourself in the head. But neither activity is safe.

That’s why the conclusion doesn’t follow. Even though the Mediterranean diet is safer, maybe it’s still quite unsafe and does a terrible job protecting the heart. The right answer addresses this, by showing that the fat in the Mediterranean diet is healthful. This strengthens the idea that the fatty Mediterranean diet is actually safe, rather than merely being less unsafe.

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1. The argument’s conclusion was that eliminating fat was not necessary. This answer weakens the argument by saying that limiting fat can be good. 
2. CORRECT. This strengthens the argument by showing that the fat in the Mediterranean diet was, in fact, helpful. So a moderate fat diet could be an advantage, rather than a drawback.
3. Great, the Mediterranean diet is delicious. So what? The conclusion is about the effects of the diet, not whether it is easy to follow.
4. It’s not clear how this affects the argument. We don’t know if the study participants exercised.
5. This shows that drugs might make the Mediterranean Diet more effective.
   So what? We have no reason to believe that participants in the study were given these drugs.