LSAT 103 – Section 3 – Question 08

LSAT 103 - Section 3 - Question 08

September 1998

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Target time: 1:12

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT103 S3 Q08
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Causal Reasoning +CausR
Link Assumption +LinkA
A
3%
160
B
1%
160
C
0%
160
D
1%
164
E
96%
167
120
127
140
 +Easiest 148.537 +SubsectionMedium

J.Y.’s explanation

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Grasses and woody plants are planted on dirt embankments to keep the embankments from eroding. The embankments are mowed to keep the grasses from growing too tall; as a result, clippings pile up. These piles of clippings smother the woody plants, causing their roots, which serve to keep the embankments from eroding, to rot; they also attract rodents that burrow into the dirt and damage the woody plants’ roots. Therefore, bringing in predators to eradicate the rodents will prevent erosion of the embankments.

Summarize Argument
The argument concludes that introducing predators to eradicate rodents on dirt embankments will prevent the embankments from eroding. Why? Because the rodents, which are attracted by grass clippings that cause plant roots to rot, burrow into the ground and further damage the roots. These roots are what prevent erosion.

Identify and Describe Flaw
The argument concludes that eliminating rodents would stop erosion, because rodents are one factor in causing the erosion. However, this overlooks the other cause of erosion: the clippings causing plant roots to rot.

A
Two events that merely co-occur are treated as if one caused the other.
The argument doesn’t mistake a correlation for a causal relationship: the cause-and-effect relationships discussed are genuine.
B
A highly general proposal is based only on an unrepresentative set of facts.
The argument doesn’t make a general proposal based on unrepresentative facts. The facts offered are about a specific set of embankments, and the proposal is about those same embankments.
C
The conclusion is no more than a restatement of one of the pieces of evidence provided to support it.
The conclusion, that bringing in predators to eliminate rodents would prevent erosion, is not a restatement of any of the supporting evidence.
D
One possible solution to a problem is claimed to be the only possible solution to that problem.
The argument never claims that bringing in predators to eliminate rodents is the only possible solution to erosion.
E
An action that would eliminate one cause of a problem is treated as if it would solve the entire problem.
The argument concludes that eliminating rodents would solve the entire problem of erosion, but rodents are only one cause. This conclusion doesn’t address the other cause of root rot.

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LSAT PrepTest 103 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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