LSAT 141 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q4

LR Question 4 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Psychologist: Some have argued that Freudian…

QUESTION TYPE: Method of Reasoning

CONCLUSION: It’s wrong to say Freudian psychotherapy is effective because of the fact that it’s slow and expensive.

REASONING: No one would say a car repair shop is good because it’s slow and expensive.

ANALYSIS: This seems like a pretty good argument. It’s an argument by analogy. Since most people would accept the conclusion about car repair shops, they’ll likely accept the analogous conclusion about Freudian psychotherapy.

There’s not much to say about the wrong answers: they didn’t happen. Instead of trying to “explain” why they’re wrong, I’ve shown an example of what that method of reasoning would look like if it had happened.

___________

1. The author didn’t do this.
   Example of method: Some say psychotherapy is effective because it’s hard. But anything hard isn’t worth doing.
2. The author didn’t do this.
   Example of method: Some say psychotherapy is effective because it’s hard. But actually, psychotherapy isn’t hard.
3. CORRECT. The conclusion about car repair shops is the analogous statement. Most people would agree with that conclusion. The author hopes we’ll think that car repair is comparable to psychotherapy.
4. The author didn’t do this.
   Example of method: Some say psychotherapy is a good idea because it’s hard, and as evidence they say we think learning a language is a good idea because it’s hard. But this analogy is wrong: language learning has proven results, whereas psychotherapy has no track record of good results.
5. The author didn’t do this.
   Example of method: Some say psychotherapy causes increased confidence. But actually, people only go to psychotherapy because they become confident enough to talk about their problems with a stranger.