LSAT 158 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q26

LR Question 26 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: Every Labrador retriever in my neighborhood is…

QUESTION TYPE: Parallel Reasoning (Flawed)

CONCLUSION: Training, not genetic makeup, accounts for the dogs’ good behaviour.

REASONING: Every Labrador retriever in my neighbourhood is well-behaved. If a pet isn’t trained, it wouldn’t be well-behaved. (LR ➞ WB ➞ T)

ANALYSIS: Real life is complicated. You can have more than one cause of things. It’s possible every dog is poorly behaved without training. But on the other hand, it’s also possible that Labrador retrievers are well behaved because of genetics, too. You wouldn’t train a cat and expect it to act like a Labrador retriever!

The author thinks that because he found one cause, no other causes are possible. This is a flaw of overfocus.

So we’re looking for an analogous situation where there are two equally possible causes of a state but the person insists that because they identified a necessary cause, then all other causes are possible.

___________

1. This answer choice has “should” as the conclusion, a recommendation. The stimulus is factual, not moral, so this is wrong. This answer also doesn’t exclude an alternative cause.
2. CORRECT. This answer choice says there are two possible causes (carelessness and iciness) but decides that one is the only cause.
3. This answer choice has two premises but the only way to connect them is to prove that musicians aren’t mathematicians and vice versa. Further, the stimulus completely excludes genetic makeup as the cause, whereas this answer only says rhythm is more responsible than counting. It doesn’t say counting is unimportant.
4. This answer choice has a different structure: it has a single conditional statement then overapplies it. The statement is: “GC ➞ B and M” Whereas the stimulus combined two conditional statements.
5. This answer is way more complex than the stimulus, which makes it unlikely to be correct. Also, this is a good argument! Solve word problems ➞ understand algebra

Recap: The question begins with “Every Labrador retriever in my neighborhood is”. It is a Flawed Parallel Reasoning question. Learn more about LSAT Flawed Parallel questions in our guide to LSAT Logical Reasoning question types.