LSAT 105 – Section 1 – Question 21

LSAT 105 - Section 1 - Question 21

February 1999

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT105 S1 Q21
+LR
Necessary assumption +NA
A
53%
169
B
6%
162
C
11%
162
D
10%
159
E
20%
163
156
165
174
 +Hardest 147.243 +SubsectionMedium

Two doctrines have been greatly influential in this century. The first holds that the explanation of any historical event must appeal to economic factors. The second attempts to account psychologically for all historical events, especially in terms of early childhood experience. Both doctrines, however, are mistaken. Certainly there have been events that were due both to economic forces and to the nature of the early childhood experiences of the major participants in the event.

Summary
Doctrine 1 says that explanations of any historical event must appeal to economic factors.
Doctrine 2 tries to explain all historical events in psychological terms.
The author concludes that both doctrines are wrong. Why? Because there are events that were due both to economics and psychological forces.

Notable Assumptions
Why does the author think that the fact some events need both economic and psychological explanations shows that the doctrines are wrong? The author’s line of reasoning doesn’t make sense, because neither of the doctrines say that events are exclusively caused by economics or exclusively caused by psychology. This gets to the core of the author’s assumption. He’s assuming that Doctrine 1 believes events are exclusively explained by economics, and that Doctrine 2 believes events are exclusively explained by psychology.

A
The first doctrine precludes any noneconomic factors in explanations of historical events.
(A) is necessary, because if it were not true — if Doctrine 1 allows noneconomic factors in explanations of historical events — then the author’s premise wouldn’t show that Doctrine 1 is wrong. The author mistakenly believes that Doctrine 1 doesn’t allow for noneconomic factors; this is why he thinks pointing out some events involve both economic and non-economic factors goes against Doctrine 1.
B
The second doctrine places importance only on childhood experiences.
The author doesn’t have to believe Doctrine 2 places importance only on childhood experiences. Doctrine 2 may focus on early childhood experiences, but there’s no indication the author thinks no other psychological experiences are relevant to Doctrine 2.
C
Historical events are influenced as much or as little by economic factors as by psychological factors.
The author simply points out that some events involve both factors. But one kind of factor can be more influential than the other; that wouldn’t undermine the author’s line of reasoning. To the author, as long as an event involves both factors — regardless of whether they are equally influential or not — that shows both doctrines are wrong.
D
One is likely to find that both economic and psychological explanations have been proposed for any given historical event.
The author simply points out that there are some events that involve both factors. But the author doesn’t assume that both kinds of explanations are likely to have been proposed for “any” historical event.
E
Appeals to both economic and psychological factors are needed to understand any historical event properly.
The author simply points out that there are some events that involve both factors. But the author doesn’t assume that both factors are necessary to understand “any” historical event.

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LSAT PrepTest 105 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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