LSAT 154 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q15

LR Question 15 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: In the winter, ravens survive by eating carcasses…

QUESTION TYPE: Argument Evaluation

HYPOTHESIS: People had observed ravens inviting other ravens to share a carcass. This seemed altruistic.

STUDY OF RAVENS: It turns out that mated ravens will claim meat in their territory. Younger, weaker ravens will form a group to fight the mated pair.

ANALYSIS: The stimulus uses sterile, scientific language, but it’s describing a brutal scene. Basically an older pair of ravens has claimed all the meat in the territory, and the younger ravens go hungry. So the young ravens are fighting for their life and waging war against the senior pair. The young ravens would prefer to have the carcass all to themselves, but banding together is the only way to win the war.

So the ravens aren’t displaying altruism. Instead, they’re following their own interest.

I wasn’t sure what to call this question type, I’ve not seen one like it before. I fit it into “argument evaluation”, but it’s different from others in that category.

___________

1. Bernd Heinrich didn’t propose any hypotheses. All we know is he though the ravens’ behavior was worth investigating.
2. CORRECT. The prior observation that was confirmed was: ravens band together to share food. The reinterpretation was: they don’t do it because they’re nice and want to share. They do it to defeat rival ravens.
3. Bernd Heinrich didn’t state any theory. He merely wanted to observe the curious situation. Further, his work disconfirmed the previous theory.
4. We don’t know the earlier methods. The stimulus only says “according to many reports, ravens will….”. That’s it. That’s a statement, not a method. We know Heinrich’s methods, but not earlier ones.
5. This is just scientific language which doesn’t match the stimulus whatsoever.
    
   There were no previous studies: only “reports”, which can just mean someone saying “Hey I saw ravens do this”. And Heinrich didn’t get a more limited set of data. He got more information about why ravens band together.

Recap: The question begins with “In the winter, ravens survive by eating carcasses”. It is a Argument Evaluation question. Learn how to master LSAT Evaluate questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.