LSAT 152 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q25

LR Question 25 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: The more demand there is for something, the easier it is…

QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption

CONCLUSION: Used cars less than ten yers old tend to be easier t0 sell than cars which are older than ten years old.

REASONING: More demand for something makes it easier to sell. There is more demand for young cars from junkyards.

ANALYSIS: I found this to be an unusually tricky final question. It can help to break it into components.

• Evidence: There is little demand for car parts from old cars
• Conclusion: It is hard to sell old cars

The argument assumes that demand for parts is the only or the main cause of sales of old cars. But what if that isn’t true? Maybe the main reasons people buy old cars are for their vintage quality, or for scrap metal. (Scrap metal is not a car part). If there are other reasons to buy an older car, it may be easy to sell them even if you can’t sell the cars for parts.

And remember, the conclusion is about ease of sale, not price. You might get a higher price on a new car, but it takes you a while to sell it. Whereas maybe you can quickly sell an older car for scrap since the transaction is simpler.

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1. It doesn’t matter if car part demand is the exclusive factor. It only matters whether demand is a big factor. If car parts almost fully determine demand, then it doesn’t matter if there is some other tiny factor that contributes.
   Negation: Car sales demand is 99.99999% influenced by parts value. But, there is a 0.000001% influence from car colour.
2. It doesn’t matter if some other entity buys a tiny fraction of used cars. You could negate this to “Junkyards buy 99.99% of cars older than ten years, and scrap dealers buy the other 0.01%”.
    
   If you’re a seller in that situation, you’re still dealing with junkyards, so the negation has no impact. If negating an answer has no impact, the answer isn’t right.
   Negation: People other than junkyards occasionally buy older cars, but junkyards still account for 99.99% of purchases. And non-junkyard buyers also only buy for parts.
3. This strengthens the argument, but it isn’t necessary. We only care about cars, whereas this statement could refer to other things. “In general” is too vague a statement. For example, I could say “in general, primates are fully covered in hair” but that doesn’t mean humans are fully covered in hair.
    
   So this statement could actually mean: “Most things are harder to sell when they’re older, but this doesn’t apply to cars”. Meanwhile, you could negate this to something that supports the argument! See below.
   Negation: For cars, age makes it harder to sell. But there are exceptions for other things. For example, fine wine is easier to sell if older.
4. This answer makes no sense. The stimulus said younger cars have more demand. So this answer attempts to contradict the stimulus, which is not helpful. We’re supposed to strengthen the argument with the correct answer.
    
   Also, “lack of demand being offset by lack of supply” refers to the equilibrium price. This is an economic concept not really present in the stimulus: the argument didn’t mention price at all! It’s instead about ease of making a sale. It is easy to sell an iphone and hard to sell a house. This is true regardless of the fact that a house sells for much much more than an iphone.
    
   I think the question writers were trying to bamboozle you by bringing in economic concepts that feel familiar but aren’t relevant (“supply”, “price”).
5. CORRECT. The stimulus mentioned demand for car parts in an attempt to get you to ignore other possible reasons for buying an old car: using the car, vintage value, scrap metal value. The negation of this answer suggests that car part demand is not the main factor in buying a car. If car part demand is not the major factor then this argument falls apart.
   Negation: The salability of older cars is not largely based on demand for their parts.

Recap: The question begins with “The more demand there is for something, the easier it is”. It is a Necessary Assumption question. Learn how to master LSAT Necessary questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.