LSAT 150 | Section 3 | Logical Reasoning: Q18

LR Question 18 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Efforts to get the public to exercise regularly, which have…

QUESTION TYPE: Necessary Assumption

CONCLUSION: Efforts to get the public to exercise regularly would be more successful if they emphasized the dangers of a sedentary lifestyle, rather than focusing on positive effects of exercise.

REASONING: Previous efforts have focused on emphasizing the positive effects of exercise, but were unsuccessful. Anti-smoking campaigns achieve success by emphasizing the dangers of smoking. Exercise campaigns should follow suit.

ANALYSIS: The argument here is simple. But make sure you know the conclusion. The conclusion isn’t just “emphasizing dangers would work”. It’s “emphasizing dangers is better than emphasizing positive effects”.

The author shows that emphasizing dangers works for smoking. But they don’t provide any evidence to show that that emphasizing positive effects for smoking would be worse. Instead, this is just something they assume. The correct answer will be along these lines.

___________

1. It doesn’t matter if smoking is generally worse. They’re both health issues and the campaigns can be compared.
2. It doesn’t matter why the positive effects campaigns have failed. The author just argues that emphasizing dangers would be better.
3. The argument doesn’t assume this. If anything, this answer might demonstrate that emphasizing positive effects would be better at helping people quit smoking, since they already know the dangers and smoke anyway.
4. CORRECT. The argument assumes that emphasizing positive effects of smoking wouldn’t be as successful. Otherwise, it would destroy their claim that emphasizing dangers is better than emphasizing positive effects.
5. This isn’t something the argument assumes. And even if it were assumed, it doesn’t show that emphasizing positive effects would be less successful. Of course people are citing health concerns – that’s what the campaigns are focusing on! If campaigns focused on positive benefits and ignored health concerns, people would probably be citing those more often too.

Recap: The question begins with “Efforts to get the public to exercise regularly, which have”. It is a Necessary Assumption question. Learn more about LSAT Necessary questions in our guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning question types.