LSAT 143 | Section 3 | Logical Reasoning: Q14

LR Question 14 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Branson: Most of the air pollution in this country…

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Parallel Reasoning

CONCLUSION: We’d have less air pollution if people moved from cities to rural areas.

REASONING: Most air pollution comes from large cities. If more people moved out of cities, cities would pollute less.

ANALYSIS: This is a terrible argument. The author hasn’t shown that an individual person will pollute less in the countryside than in the city.

If people pollute the same no matter where they live, then moving people out of cities is just shuffling around pollution.

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1. This isn’t a bad argument, but it isn’t the same flaw. The flaw here is that while Monique is likely to spend more on housing, that doesn’t mean she’ll spent most of her money on housing.
2. This argument is flawed, but it’s a different flaw. This argument mistakes average properties for individual properties.
   It’s possible that Karen’s apartment is an extremely large apartment, and so most homes would be smaller than her family’s apartment.
3. This makes a whole-to-part flaw. We only know that most farms switched to corn. That doesn’t mean that all farms switched.
   The stimulus didn’t make a whole-to-part flaw.
4. CORRECT. This makes the same flaw. The argument suggests that Javier should shuffle around his calories. But unless Javier actually eats less food, then he’ll still eat the same number of calories under the new plan.
5. This answer matches the subject of the stimulus, but that’s not necessary for an analogy. In fact, commonly the same subject is used merely to fool you into thinking an answer is relevant.
   This argument is flawed, but it’s a different flaw – there’s no shuffling around of pollution.
   The flaw is that while it sounds like public transit could reduce pollution, but we don’t know that it could eliminate most pollution. We’re not told if cars produce most pollution.