LSAT 140 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q8

LR Question 8 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Many uses have been claimed for hypnosis…

QUESTION TYPE: Most Strongly Supported

FACTS:

1. Subjects listened to music.
2. Under hypnosis, half were asked to remember the music.
3. Under hypnosis, the other half were asked to remember the movie they watched.
4. Both groups gave equally confident and detailed descriptions.

ANALYSIS: Both groups were under hypnosis, and listened to music. One group was told they heard music, the other was told they saw a movie. The second group remembered seeing a movie.

So we’ve got an experiment with two groups, and one difference between them: one group was told a lie, and they believed it.

We can’t conclude that hypnosis alone is the cause of anything. Both groups were under hypnosis, and the first group behaved normally. All we can say is that the lie was influential while under hypnosis.

As a side note, “equally confident” could mean that both groups were equally unconfident.

___________

1. The stimulus didn’t give us information to evaluate most claims made about hypnosis.
2. The stimulus only told us about one situation where hypnosis hurt recall. That’s not enough information. Maybe in other circumstances hypnosis can improve recall.
3. Way too strong. We know in one situation hypnosis led to false memories. But maybe hypnosis doesn’t mislead in most situations.
4. CORRECT. The second group remembered a movie they hadn’t seen. Based on common sense, telling them that they saw a movie must have caused this. People would normally know they hadn’t seen a movie.
5. In the stimulus, the movie group was given false visual memories: this isn’t an enhancement.

Recap: The question begins with “Many uses have been claimed for hypnosis,”. It is a Most Strongly Supported question. To practice more Most Strongly Supported questions, have a look at the LSAT Questions by Type page.