LSAT 152 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q11

LR Question 11 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Last year the Lalolah River was ranked by the Sunvale Water…

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: Sunvale must have cleaned up the Lalolah river.

REASONING: Last year, the Lalolah river was the most polluted of the fifteen rivers in the Sunvale water district. But this year, Sunvale Water Commission’s rankings put Lalolah as being only the third most polluted river.

ANALYSIS: How to win a competition? You have two ways. Get better, or ruin your opponents. Perhaps the other rivers just got more polluted.

___________

1. This is a different flaw.
    
   Example of flaw: You say that I am smelly, but you have presented no evidence. So, I submit that I smell of fresh daisies!
2. There’s no ambiguity in the expression! Most polluted means #1 in pollution. This type of answer choice will not be correct unless you can pick a specific ambiguity. e.g. Maybe one river had the most types of pollutants, but another had higher concentrations of the deadliest ones.
3. This type of answer is almost never right. LSAT questions are short. The basis for pollution rankings would probably require a few hundred words at least. There’s no space for that: instead you assume relevant experts are credible unless given a reason to think otherwise.
4. This didn’t happen.
    
   Example of flaw: The water distract has 15 rivers, and the land in between them. We moved the pollution from the rivers and dumped it on the land. The individual rivers are now all clean! So, the water district as a whole is now clean! (the flaw is ignoring the pollution that was moved to the land portion of the district)
5. CORRECT. This is abstract language, but it describes the flaw. Assume zero is pollution free and 100 is max pollution. Maybe last year, the three most polluted rivers were Lalolah: 57, River B: 54, River C: 52. ow, they are: River B: 78, River C: 65, Lalolah: 63
    
   Lalolah has a relative decrease in pollution: B and C are now worse in the rankings. But, Lalolah has an absolute increase in pollution: it has more pollutants than it had last year.

Recap: The question begins with “Last year the Lalolah River was ranked by the Sunvale Water”. It is a Flawed Reasoning question. Learn how to master LSAT Flaw questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.