LR Question 4 Explanation, by LSATHacks
QUESTION TEXT: Swimming pools should be fenced to protect children…
QUESTION TYPE: Complete The Argument
CONCLUSION: It is even more important to teach children to want healthy food.
REASONING: It’s more important to teach children to swim than to close off pools with fences. Similarly, restricting access to junk food is not the most important thing.
ANALYSIS: Complete the argument questions often involve analogies. You have to think about the logic of the analogy.
If a kid can swim, it doesn’t matter if he falls into a pool that isn’t fenced off.
Likewise, if a kid doesn’t want junk food, then it doesn’t matter whether she’s allowed to have it.
___________
- This doesn’t make sense. If we teach kids to trust TV then they might believe that junk food ads are accurate and that kids should eat nothing but chocolate bars.
- This is over-broad. We don’t know if all ads are misleading.
- CORRECT. If children know how to make good nutritional choices, then they won’t be as tempted by junk food ads on TV.
- Physical activity won’t save you if your diet is nothing but ice cream. This is beside the point of the argument, which is about nutrition.
- This completely ignores food. The argument was about how kids should eat.
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Usually the first few questions or so are relatively simple before the painful Q15-Q23 stretch, it was trickier than I expected to choose C over B and D.
I realized that the structure is this: unhealthy foods are being delivered via TV. Restricting access is good, but teaching them to best deal with the unhealthy stuff is even more important.
B is too broad and only attacks the medium (TV), not the root cause (that unhealthy foods exist). D introduces a different health component : exercise. C focuses on the heart of the issue: nutrition.
Time and time again, I’ve realized when I’m between 2 answer choices, the correct one addresses a part of the argument that’s more “upstream” than the other, if that makes any sense. B’s a great example of a tempting choice by bringing up something more “downstream” (TV) than the central issue (junk food). With B, kids would likely be more discerning towards junk food ads – that’s fairly compelling, but doesn’t strike at the heart of the argument. Phew.
There’s usually one harder question in 1-10!
Agree with Yasamin. Got it right, but it bothered me. C would be more like saying “Swimming pools should have a fence, but we should teach kids not to get in the pool even if they find one that doesn’t have a fence.”
Instead we are saying: Pools should have a fence, but we should teach kids how to swim so they can safely enjoy the pool. Likewise: We should restrict kids from junk food, but we should teach kids how to “do an activity” so that they can safely enjoy the junk food. Which leans to D. Not my favorite LSAT question.
Hello!
Thank you so much for your super helpful course and explanations!
Quick question regarding answer choice D. The principle of the answer seems like its stating that kids should learn to swim so they can go into the pool. I understood that as; kids should also be allowed and/or can eat unhealthy foods, as long as they learn how to balance?
Best wishes!
The primary issue with (D) is that it addresses physical activity as opposed to nutrition, and nutritional choices and not physical activity are what is at issue in the second part of the stimulus (“thus, while we should restrict children’s access to the soft drinks and candies…”.
Also, even if the author is identifying some element of risk in the first part of the stimulus, the principle that is being suggested isn’t “pools are dangerous, but physical activity is good, so children should be taught to balance the dangers of pools against the benefits of swimming”. The implicit principle is that teaching children skills that will help them minimize the harms of specific situations (whether it’s swimming or coming up to a vending machine) is more important than minimizing their exposure to those situations.