LSAT 81, Logical Reasoning I, Q19, LSATHacks

Edit: Question incorrect. Will need to amend this explanation. The correct answer is C.

 

QUESTION TEXT: Analyst: Any new natural-gas-powered electrical generation station…

QUESTION TYPE: Most Strongly Supported

FACTS: 

1. New natural gas plants need: to be near a gas pipeline, a body of water for cooling, and transmission lines.
2. The plant has to be located where residents won’t be against building it.
3. Existing gas lines are at three bodies of water. Residents would oppose construction there.

ANALYSIS: I completely misread this question. I thought it said that there were only three bodies of water in the country. Instead, it says “only three bodies of water have gas pipelines”. 

There could be 1,000 bodies of water in the country, 997 of them without gas pipelines. And it’s possible these other bodies of water are in areas where residents would welcome construction. In that case, gas plants would be built there. 

So, all we can conclude is that gas plants can’t be built near any of the existing pipelines (since residents there oppose construction). Therefore new pipelines are needed.

___________

1. This would be true if the three bodies of water in question were the only bodies of water in the country. But that’s not what the question said. Instead, it said only three of the bodies of water in the country have gas pipelines.
   So there could be many, many other bodies of water in the country, and residents near some of those bodies of water may approve of construction.
2. This isn’t supported: the stimulus didn’t say anything about what causes residents to move. You might have picked this thinking no new gas plants = not enough electricity. But there are other ways to generate electricity apart from gas plants.
3. CORRECT. We know that you can only build a power plant if residents approve of construction. And there are only three sets of gas lines in the country, and residents near those gas lines oppose construction.
   So, to build a new power plant, you’d need to find a body of water where residents would approve of construction, and build new gas lines there.
4. The analyst said the rules apply to any new gas plant. It’s possible that existing gas plants were built by the water, in an earlier time when residents didn’t oppose construction.
5. This is possible, but we don’t have any support for it. The only evidence we have about resident preferences is that they don’t want new gas plants. You can’t use evidence that people oppose something as evidence they would support something else (transmission lines).

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