LR Question 16 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: Last year, a software company held a contest to…
QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning
CONCLUSION: Juan surely entered the contest.
REASONING: Juan has a T shirt with the new logo. Anyone entering the contest had a chance to win such a T shirt.
ANALYSIS: What a stupid argument. There are other ways to get T shirts. Maybe Juan works for the company, and they gave him a shirt with the new logo after it was finalized.
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- What correlation? There’s none mentioned.
Example of correlation: People named Juan are 36% more likely to have a T shirt with the logo. - CORRECT. Even if every winner got a T shirt, there could still be other was to get a T shirt. Juan could have got the shirt some other way, such as buying it.
- This is a whole to part flaw. It’s a different flaw.
Example of flaw: Juan’s company is three years old. So Juan and all the other employees are also three years old. - This describes circular reasoning. It’s very rare, and usually fairly obvious when it happens.
Example of flaw: Juan entered the contest because he did enter it. - This is a different flaw.
Example of flaw: Someone named Juan has the T shirt with the new logo. So presumably everybody with the new T shirt is named Juan.
Recap: The question begins with “Last year, a software company held a”. It is a Flawed Reasoning question. To practice more Flawed Reasoning questions, have a look at the LSAT Questions by Type page.
More Resources for Flaw Questions
- Flaw drills: Use these to practice making examples of abstract flaws.
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Flaw questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers flaw questions.
Hi,
I had a hard time seeing why (B) could be a mistaken reversal.
I spot several prizes as the necessary condition and several means more than one (?).
So the saying Juan has one of the prizes is not really saying Juan has several prizes, the necessary condition. So I very struggled between B and E.
Any thoughts, please?
It’s true that if you win a contest you have multiple prizes, but among those is a T-shirt. Anyone who wins the contest does have a T-shirt. So we can draw:
If enter contest -> receive T-shirt
The reasoning is flawed in Juan’s case because his argument is:
If receive T-shirt -> entered contest