LSAT 102 – Section 2 – Question 18

LSAT 102 - Section 2 - Question 18

June 1998

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT102 S2 Q18
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Eliminating Options +ElimOpt
A
1%
164
B
4%
163
C
9%
159
D
1%
163
E
86%
166
131
144
156
 +Medium 148.204 +SubsectionMedium

J.Y.’s explanation

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President of Central Supply Company: Profits are at an all-time low this fiscal year because of decreased demand for our products. If this situation continues, the company may have to declare bankruptcy. So it is important to prevent any further decrease in profits. Consequently, the only options are to reduce planned expansion or to eliminate some less profitable existing operations.

Summarize Argument
The president concludes that the only options for Central Supply Company are to reduce planned expansion, or to eliminate less profitable existing operations. Why? Because if the company’s profits stay low, it may go bankrupt. Because of this, the company needs to prevent further decreases in its already low profits.

Identify and Describe Flaw
Based on the company’s need to prevent its profits from falling, the president concludes that there are only two options: reducing expansion or cutting existing operations. The flaw here is that we have no reason to think that other options might not also be possible—the president never addresses other possibilities. For example, why not increase advertising, or improve existing products?

A
It presumes without giving justification that survival of the company has been a good thing.
The president doesn’t ever claim that the company’s survival has been a good thing. The argument is about preventing bankruptcy, not about weighing the company’s impact so far.
B
It does not take into account that there are alternatives to declaring bankruptcy.
The president’s whole argument is about what alternatives may be possible instead of the company needing to declare bankruptcy.
C
It presumes without giving justification that only decreased demand can ever be the cause of decreased profits.
The president never claims that decreased demand is the only thing that can ever cause decreased profits. Saying that decreased demand caused decreased profits in this particular case is not the same thing.
D
It does not allow for the possibility that profits will decrease only slightly during the next fiscal year.
Whether or not it’s possible that profits will decrease only slightly next year is irrelevant to the argument. We already know that if profits continue to fall, the company may go bankrupt. How much they fall doesn’t change that.
E
It does not take into account that there may be other ways to stop the decrease in profits.
The president concludes that there are only two ways to stop the company’s profits from falling, but never tells us why those are the only options. This is a flaw because it means an important part of the conclusion—that these are the “only” options—lacks support.

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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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