LSAT 120 – Section 3 – Question 08

LSAT 120 - Section 3 - Question 08

October 2005

You need a full course to see this video. Enroll now and get started in less than a minute.

Ask a tutor

Target time: 1:04

This is question data from the 7Sage LSAT Scorer. You can score your LSATs, track your results, and analyze your performance with pretty charts and vital statistics - all with a Free Account ← sign up in less than 10 seconds

Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT120 S3 Q08
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
86%
164
B
2%
157
C
4%
159
D
8%
155
E
1%
154
136
145
154
 +Medium 146.629 +SubsectionMedium

Consumer advocate: There is ample evidence that the model of car one drives greatly affects the chances that one’s car will be stolen. The model of car stolen most often in our country last year, for example, was also the model stolen most often in the preceding year.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The advocate concludes that some models of cars are more likely to be stolen than others. Why? Because the model of car that was stolen most often one year ago is the same as that stolen most often two years ago.

Identify and Describe Flaw
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of confusing percentages and amounts. The advocate draws an implied conclusion about how likely a certain kind of car is to be stolen (i.e. the percentage of said cars that are stolen). But his only support is the total number of thefts of that car model.
Without knowing how common this car model is, we have no way of knowing how likely it is to be stolen. What if this is simply the most popular model of car? In that case, even if it was stolen at the same rate as other models, the total number of stolen cars of this model would be higher.

A
fails to address adequately the possibility that the model of car that was stolen most often last year was the most common model of car in the consumer advocate’s country
If this is true, the fact that it was stolen the most doesn’t tell us that thieves targeted it more often than any other model of car. This undermines the advocate’s conclusion.
B
fails to address adequately the possibility that the age of a car also greatly affects its chances of being stolen
Whether age also affects the chances of being stolen is irrelevant; the author could agree that age matters, but stick to his conclusion that model also matters.
C
fails to address adequately the possibility that the car model that was stolen most often last year was stolen as often as it was because it has a very high resale value
This would support the author’s conclusion—it provides a potential reason why this model would be more likely to be stolen—so it can’t be the flaw.
D
presumes, without providing justification, that someone considering whether or not to steal a particular car considers only what model the car is
The advocate doesn’t presume that the model is the only reason a car might be likely to be stolen—merely that it’s one reason.
E
presumes, without providing justification, that the likelihood of a car’s being stolen should override other considerations in deciding which car one should drive
The advocate doesn’t presume anything about which car one should drive, so this can’t be the flaw.

Take PrepTest

Review Results

LSAT PrepTest 120 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Reading Comprehension

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

Get full LSAT course

Leave a Reply