LSAT 146 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q13

LR Question 13 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: A six-month public health campaign sought to limit…

QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen

CONCLUSION: The public followed the health campaign’s advice.

REASONING: A public health campaign told people to wash their hands and avoid public places if they had flu symptoms. And, influenza rates were much lower than expected during the months of the campaign.

ANALYSIS: So far, the argument has shown a correlation between the public health campaign and lower influenza rates. We can strengthen the argument by giving some more direct evidence that people followed the campaign’s advice, or by ruling out an alternate explanation.

Note that to strengthen the argument, the campaign must be the cause of the change. Some wrong answers specifically said that people washed their hands or stayed home for reasons unrelated to the public health campaign. That doesn’t count.

(It’s true that the right answer doesn’t say the campaign caused hand washing, but the difference is that it didn’t specifically say an alternate cause was the real reason.)

___________

1. CORRECT. This indirectly strengthens the argument by suggesting people were in fact washing their hands more than normal. We don’t know for sure the campaign is what caused it, but this is definitely strengthening evidence.
2. This weakens the argument. If people had followed the campaign’s advice, they would have stayed home when they had symptoms, lowering the spread of disease. This would have affected both influenza and the common cold, since those diseases share symptoms. Since the rate of colds didn’t go down, presumably people weren’t staying at home. Some other factor may have reduced influenza.
3. This weakens the argument: it gives an alternate cause for the decline in influenza. If public gatherings decline, people will stay at home and not spread their influenza. And this has nothing to do with the health advice.
4. This weakens the argument by giving an alternate cause. It wasn’t the public health campaign that caused hand washing: it was the news media.
5. Good intentions don’t count for much. People may say they should avoid spreading germs, but still head in to work when they feel ill. Consider how many people say they should follow smoking health campaigns, yet continue to smoke. Actions and intentions are different things.