LSAT 102 – Section 2 – Question 09

LSAT 102 - Section 2 - Question 09

June 1998

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT102 S2 Q09
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
A
1%
154
B
1%
160
C
2%
160
D
0%
157
E
96%
166
121
132
142
 +Easiest 148.204 +SubsectionMedium

Consumer advocate: Last year’s worldwide alarm about a computer “virus”—a surreptitiously introduced computer program that can destroy other programs and data—was a fraud. Companies selling programs to protect computers against such viruses raised worldwide concern about the possibility that a destructive virus would be activated on a certain date. There was more smoke than fire, however; only about a thousand cases of damage were reported around the world. Multitudes of antivirus programs were sold, so the companies’ warning was clearly only an effort to stimulate sales.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The consumer advocate concludes that antivirus companies’ warning about a destructive computer virus was a “fraud.” Why? Because there weren’t many actual cases of damage from that virus, and yet the companies sold many antivirus programs. According to the advocate, this shows that the warning was just meant to increase sales.

Identify and Describe Flaw
The consumer advocate uses an imbalance between antivirus sales and cases of damage from a virus as evidence that antivirus companies were dishonest about the risk posed by the virus. This ignores the possible alternative explanation that the antivirus programs worked, and without all those sales, the virus would have caused much more damage.

A
restates its conclusion without attempting to offer a reason to accept it
The argument does offer support for its conclusion: the claim that there were way more antivirus sales than actual cases of harm from this virus.
B
fails to acknowledge that antivirus programs might protect against viruses other than the particular one described
The argument doesn’t acknowledge this possibility, but that isn’t a flaw because the argument is specifically about the particular virus described. Whether the antivirus programs are effective against other viruses is just irrelevant.
C
asserts that the occurrence of one event after another shows that the earlier event was the cause of the later one
The advocate’s argument isn’t trying to establish the cause of a correlation. There also just aren’t any earlier and later events discussed.
D
uses inflammatory language as a substitute for providing any evidence
The argument does provide evidence for its conclusion: the imbalance between antivirus sales and actual harm done by the virus.
E
overlooks the possibility that the protective steps taken did work and, for many computers, prevented the virus from causing damage
The argument never addresses this possibility, and instead just assumes without any reason that the reason the virus didn’t do much harm is because it was never harmful. However, if the antivirus programs were effective, that really undermines the argument.

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LSAT PrepTest 102 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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