LSAT 153 | Section 2 | Logical Reasoning: Q19

LR Question 19 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Trainer: An athlete developed lower back pain after a strenuous…

QUESTION TYPE: Flawed Reasoning

CONCLUSION: In general, heating pads will be more effective than stretching at relieving lower back pain.

REASONING: An athlete developed lower back pain, and several days of stretching did not solve it. She used a heating pad and the pain disappeared after a few days.

ANALYSIS: When you are dealing with a Flawed Reasoning “EXCEPT:” question, you know that it’ll be a pretty bad argument. There will be four different answers as to why the author’s reasoning is bad! Of course, we are looking for the one answer that isn’t a fair criticism of the argument and we can’t predict what that will be until we read it. But when you’re practicing it can be a good exercise to try to identify weaknesses before even looking at the answers.

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1. CORRECT. This is half true in that the argument indeed doesn’t consider whether each solution is effective at healing the underlying injury. But that’s not what the author is trying to do! The argument is only about how effective the methods are at relieving pain.
2. If the pain was going to disappear after a week or so regardless of what the athlete did, then the heating pad and the stretching were both equally ineffective. This is a valid criticism.
3. This is criticizing the author’s use of the word “generally”. If the only evidence we have is an athlete, that’s not enough to extend our conclusion to the general population.
4. This answer also criticizes the author’s general application. Different sources of back pain might be more effectively solved in different ways. One case isn’t enough to draw a general conclusion.
5. This is a valid criticism. The author could have said “heating pads are more effective than the stretching attempted by the athlete” (not that that would be correct either). The conclusion is applied too generally.

Recap: The question begins with “Trainer: An athlete developed lower back pain after a strenuous”. It is a Flawed Reasoning question. Learn how to master LSAT Flaw questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.