This is an resolve, reconcile, explain question, indicated by: Which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain why the company has not taken available legal measures?
The first thing we learn is that the company producing XYZ, a spreadsheet program, believes that millions of illegal copies of its product are being used. Those copies were not paid for, and if they had been the company would have earned millions of dollars more. Makes senses so far! But here is where it gets weird. Although the company is currently trying to boost its sales, the company is not taking any legal action against those who copied the program illegally! You’d expect they’d be trying to clamp down on piracy, so what we are looking for in this question is an answer which explain the company’s decision in a way that is compatible with their overall goal of boosting sales. Let’s take a look at our answers:
Answer Choice (A) Ok, but we’ve been told that it has been copied millions of times, and our whole question is why the company is not going after those who did it.
Answer Choice (B) This just makes things even weirder; legal measures have been an option from the start and the company has not taken them.
Correct Answer Choice (C) If we’re all being honest I’m sure some of you can relate to this, and have pirated a service or abused a free trial policy before you ended up actually purchasing the product. This explains why the company isn’t cracking down; the pirated copies get people to try the service and therefore actually drive sales.
Answer Choice (D) Another answer choice that just makes the discrepancy weirder; if this is the case than that seems like a really significant share of business the company is losing out on by not pursuing legal measures!
Answer Choice (E) We aren’t told whether this has harmed ABC’s sales, so all we really learn is that it is possible to go after illegal copies and in fact the main competition is doing so. The question remains of why XYZ isn’t doing the same.
This is a resolve, reconcile, explain question, as the stem asks: Which one of the following, if true, offers the best prospects of an explanation of why the two changes in smoking habits do not both result in reduced health risks?
The stimulus begins by telling us that smoking pipes or cigars is less dangerous to your health than is smoking cigarettes. The next sentence begins with however, which should always jump out at us on RRE questions because it indicates that a discrepancy is about to be introduced. In this case, the discrepancy is that quitting cigarettes sharply reduces your risk of smoking-related issues, while switching from cigarettes to cigars/pipes retains the risk level of cigarettes. Since we’ve been told pipes/cigars are less harmful, we’d expect some kind of improvement by switching to them. The correct answer will explain why we don’t see an improvement. Let’s take a look at our options:
Answer Choice (A) What we’re interested is why switching from the worst option (cigarettes) to a better one (pipes/cigars) doesn’t lead to less risk. The fact that going cold turkey is best doesn’t explain why there isn’t any improvement going from the worst to something better.
Answer Choice (B) So quitting cigarettes and then picking them back up won’t necessarily reduce your risk; but we want to know why switching from cigarettes to pipes/cigars doesn’t reduce risk!
Answer Choice (C) All this does is eliminate a possible difference between the two smoking options, without doing anything to explain why people who switch from cigarettes to cigars don’t experience improvement.
Answer Choice (D) Smokers for the most part sticking to a single option doesn’t explain why those who do completely switch to a less dangerous option don’t receive the reduced health risk associated with that option.
Correct Answer Choice (E) If what makes cigarettes worse is the way you inhale them, then if a cigarette smoker switches to another option but continues smoking the same way, it would make sense there wouldn’t be any health benefit. The difference in health benefits isn’t about what you are smoking, but how you are smoking.
We should recognize this as a resolve, reconcile, explain question, as it asks: Which one of the following most helps to explain why the price of vinyl records went up?
The first thing we learn in this stimulus is that when compact disks became available they were priced higher than vinyl, and this was attributed to the production costs of the novel technology. Because people hadn’t quite figured out how to cheaply make the new product, it was expensive. Think about how much a flatscreen television cost when they first became available compared to how cheap they are now. As the production technology became more efficient, compact disks became more affordable. But vinyl, whose production technology had long been established, suddenly went up in price. So we seem to have a discrepancy, where one product reduced in price as its production process became more refined, while another went up in price even though it had been produced for a long time. The answer which satisfyingly explains why the prices of these two products behaved differently will be correct. Let’s see our options:
Answer Choice (A) This explains why consumers were willing to pay for the more expensive new product, but does nothing to explain why vinyl suddenly became more expensive.
Answer Choice (B) This explains why some bought vinyl instead of compact discs, but again does nothing to explain the price change of vinyl.
Correct Answer Choice (C) This gives us a reason why vinyl, despite having been around for awhile, had its price rise after the introduction of compact discs. Just as it was expensive to make compact disks at first because their production costs were high, the demand for compact disks decreased the production of vinyl, which made them more expensive to produce per item. Because they were no longer the only option available, they became more of a niche item produced at a smaller level with more production costs.
Answer Choice (D) Interesting! But this does nothing to help us.
Answer Choice (E) This answer is pretty much the same as B, we get a motivation for purchasing one of the two products, but nothing to explain the vinyl price increase.
This is an EXCEPT must be true question, since the stem asks: If the statements above are true, each of the following must also be true on the basis of them EXCEPT:
Our stimulus begins with a some statement, and informs us that some of the world’s most beautiful cats are Persian cats. It’s important to remember that just because some beautiful cats are Persian, that doesn’t mean all Persian cats are beautiful. What we do learn about all Persian cats however, is that they are pompous. I’m not quite sure what it means for a cat to be pompous (I’m picturing a cat turning up its nose at dry food), but we also learn that pompous cats are invariably irritating, which means that pompous cats are always irritating. Because this is an EXCEPT must be true question, we know we are going to get four answers that are guaranteed to be true from this cat info, and that the correct answer will be the one answer which could be false. Let’s see what cat inferences our answer choices make:
Answer Choice (A) If all Persian cats are irritating, and some of the most beautiful cats are Persian, then it must be true that some of the most beautiful cats are irritating.
Answer Choice (B) Same as A, this is guaranteed
Answer Choice (C) All Persian cats are Irritating means that Persian → Irritating. C is just the contrapositive of this conditional, and therefore must be true.
Answer Choice (D) If all Persian cats are pompous, and some of the most beautiful cats are Persian, then it must be true that some of the most beautiful cats are pompous.
Correct Answer Choice (E) This could be false! For all we know all cats that are both irritating and beautiful are Persian.
We should recognize this as a weakening question: Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the representative’s argument?
Our stimulus is attributed to a Beverage company representative, and he makes a prediction about the effect of a new policy. Thus far, beverage cans have been linked by plastic rings that often harm and suffocate animals when they end up in the environment. All the beverage companies, following the representative’s company’s lead, are going to adopt new plastic rings that disintegrate after three days exposure to sunlight. Sounds like a much better option! The representative concludes with a prediction that once the switchover from the old to the new plastic rings is completed, the threat of suffocation to animals will be eliminated. Our job is to weaken this prediction: we want an answer choice that would reduce the probability that the change, once adopted, will be sufficient to eliminate the threat to animals. On to the answers:
Answer Choice (A) Remember, our representative’s prediction specifies that the elimination will occur once the switchover is complete.
Correct Answer Choice (B) If the original problem is still out there, well then even if it is no longer going to be getting worse a switchover won’t be enough to eliminate the threat of plastic rings to animals.
Answer Choice (C) This doesn’t weaken the prediction at all.
Answer Choice (D) Good for the new rings, but this does nothing to weaken the prediction.
Answer Choice (E) Okay this gives us a reason why the change will harm animals, but remember, we are specifically interested in whether it will eliminate the problem of suffocating.
Here we have a weakening question, as we are introducing a premise which weakens an argument: Which one of the following, if true, could Mark cite to counter evidence offered by Tina?
Our stimulus takes the form of a debate between Mark and Tina about whether paper or plastic-foam cups are more environmentally friendly. Mark begins by telling us that p-f cups contain chlorofluorocarbons, which are bad for the environment, and gives us his conclusion; paper cups are the better option. The LSAT sure loves these tongue-twister chemical compounds! But that’s not all Mark has for us, he further informs us that the production of p-f cups also produces the carcinogen styrene, and the cups never biodegrade. They definitely don’t sound like a great option so far. Let’s see what Tina has to say!
Tina begins by claiming that Mark isn’t properly considering the downsides of paper cups. To be fair to Tina, Mark didn’t really give us an argument about why paper cups are good, he just brought up a bunch of downsides of p-f cups. Tina cites a study from 5 years earlier which concluded that paper cups required much more resources to produce than p-f cups. Even worse, paper cups take more energy to transport. And if that wasn’t enough, the paper mills produce pollution and the cups themselves produce even more when they decay. Wow, this seems like a lose-lose situation! Maybe we should all just switch to glasses? But our job is to weaken Tina’s argument; we want some evidence that will make paper cups look better than p-f cups. Let’s see what the answer choices give us:
Answer Choice (A) This just gives another downside for paper cups!
Answer Choice (B) Our argument is about the actual environmental downsides of the two cup types, and regardless this just supports Tina’s foam cups.
Correct Answer Choice (C) This is the only answer that weakens Tina’s support. If the paper mills use waste wood instead of petroleum, then Tina’s points about the relative resource consumption and mill pollution are less of an issue for Mark.
Answer Choice (D) This weakens Mark’s argument!
Answer Choice (E) Same as A!