LSAT 135 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q21

LR Question 21 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Philosopher: To explain the causes of cultural…

QUESTION TYPE: Role in Argument

CONCLUSION: Social scientists need data from several societies to explain cultural phenomena.

REASONING: Suppose you think that a certain political structure is due only to certain ecological or cultural factors. You can only prove this if you know two things:

1. There are no countries with similar political structures that don’t face those factors.
2. There are no countries that face those factors, and aren’t structured the same way.

ANALYSIS: This question uses unusually complex wording. It’s simplest to look for structural words to figure it out. The phrase ‘for example’ introduces reasoning to support a previous statement.

In this question, the colon after the first sentence further supports the idea that the first sentence is the conclusion and what follows is evidence.

___________

1. The philosopher didn’t say that social scientists need certainty. He said that if they want to be certain they need data from several societies.
2. Pure bunk. What general theoretical claim about cause and effect relationships? An example of such a claim would be “no matter how many times two events occur together, you can not prove they will always occur together”.
   The philosopher mentioned specific, non-general causal claims relating to particular societies.
3. The philosopher never said that there is a causal relationship between environmental factors and political structure.
   Instead, the philosopher described what evidence you would need to prove such a claim.
4. The philosopher never said whether it is difficult to figure out the causes of political structures.
5. CORRECT. This answer means the sentence is a conclusion. Which it is. The phrase “for example” shows that the preceding sentence is the conclusion. The example in the stimulus shows the requirements for proving that a certain political structure was caused by political or environmental conditions.