LSAT 146 | Section 3 | Logical Reasoning: Q4

LR Question 4 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: According to economists, people’s tendency to purchase…

QUESTION TYPE: Role in Argument

CONCLUSION: There are exceptions to the general rule that lower prices lead to more sales.

REASONING: Lace used to be expensive, and was used to advertise wealth. Once lace became cheap, people could no longer use it to showcase their wealth, and lace sales declined.

ANALYSIS: This question is asking about why the author mentioned steel. You’ll notice I didn’t include that in the “reasoning” section. Why?

Because, technically, the claim about steel isn’t necessary to the argument. The author is just using the steel example to clarify what the economists are talking about. The use of this example shows the author agrees that the economists are often correct.

___________

1. This is totally different.
    
   Example of statement: I claim that fish are healthy. You argued against me by saying you think fish are gross.
    
   That’s not adequate evidence to prove me wrong, as it doesn’t speak to the health impact of eating fish.
2. No. The lace example is an exception to the economists’ generalization. The question is asking about the role of steel in the argument.
3. CORRECT. The generalization is: lower prices lead to more sales. The case of steel indeed illustrates this generalization.
    
   And the author does disagree with this generalization, by using the lace example.
4. This is different.
    
   Example of statement: The economists thought that GDP would decline. Their evidence was a technical report. But, GDP did not decline. So, this technical report was evidence that led economists to embrace a false hypothesis.
5. This didn’t happen.
    
   Example of statement: “The economists learned their data has an error”.
    
   This was one of the reasons the economists modified an assumption. The other reasons were “new evidence” and “a new theory”.