LSAT 150 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q15

LR Question 15 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Children clearly have a reasonably sophisticated understanding…

QUESTION TYPE: Identify the Conclusion

CONCLUSION: Children are fairly sophisticated at understanding what’s real and what’s make-believe.

REASONING: Children can generally say which is real and make believe. Even a child running from a make-believe lion (her father) does not really believe her father is a lion. She’d be terrified if she did. Children instead get pleasure from such make-believe.

ANALYSIS: This should be a really easy question. I read the first sentence, saw “clearly” and thought “this is almost certainly the conclusion”. So, two words in and the question felt solved.

I read the rest of the argument, and nothing else had conclusion language. Don’t overcomplicate questions – conclusion indicators can be quite simple.

___________

1. CORRECT. This is basically the first sentence, which is the conclusion. You might have got hung up on the difference between “apparently” and “clearly”. In real life, people often use “apparently” to indicate skepticism. But the LSAT is literally. Apparently just means “seemingly”, which is a fair description, since all of the author’s evidence is indirect.
2. This is a fact supporting the conclusion. It helps show that children know the real from the pretend.
3. This is evidence: it supports the idea that children know the difference between the real and make believe.
4. This is evidence showing that children can understand the difference between real and make believe. They know their father is not really a lion.
5. This is evidence. It helps show that it must be true that children can distinguish between real and make-believe. Otherwise their pleasure would be impossible to explain.

Recap: The question begins with “Children clearly have a reasonably sophisticated understanding”. It is a Identify The Conclusion question. Learn how to master LSAT Identify questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.