LSAT 105 – Section 1 – Question 23

LSAT 105 - Section 1 - Question 23

February 1999

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT105 S1 Q23
+LR
Necessary assumption +NA
A
25%
166
B
18%
161
C
45%
168
D
1%
160
E
10%
163
156
168
180
 +Hardest 147.243 +SubsectionMedium

Deep tillage is even more deleterious to the world’s topsoil supply than previously believed. For example, farmers who till deeply are ten times more likely to lose topsoil to erosion than are farmers who use no-till methods. Results like these make it clear that farmers who now till deeply should strive, by using other topsoil aeration techniques, to incorporate no-till methods instead.

Summary
The author concludes that farmers who now deep-till should try to use no-till methods. Why? Because farmers who till deeply are much more likely to lose topsoil to erosion than are farmers who use no-till methods.

Notable Assumptions
The author concludes that farmers using deep-till methods should switch to no-till methods...but aren’t we overlooking other potential options? What if a shallow-till method is less likely to damage topsoil than both deep-till and no-till? The author assumes that there’s no other method that would be more effective at reducing topsoil loss than deep-till and no-till.

A
Topsoil erosion does not make farmers want to till more deeply.
What farmers “want” to do is irrelevant to the argument. What matters is what farmers actually do. Farmers may “want” to till more deeply in response to topsoil, but that doesn’t undermine the argument because it doesn’t imply that farmers in fact are tilling more deeply in response to topsoil erosion.
B
In deep-tillage farming, the deeper one tills, the greater the susceptibility to topsoil erosion.
Not necessary, because the author doesn’t have to assume the “deeper” the till, the “greater” the susceptibility. It’s possible, for example, that deep-tilling leads to more topsoil erosion than shallow tilling, but that effect happens only after we exceed a certain depth.
C
Tilling by any method other than deep tillage is not a viable option.
Necessary, because if this weren’t true — if tilling by another method besides deep tillage IS a viable option — then the author has not proven that current deep-till farmers should switch to no-till. Maybe they should switch to some other till method besides deep-till? The author must assume that these other options aren’t viable.
D
The most expensive farming methods employ topsoil aeration techniques other than deep tillage.
The “most expensive farming methods” have no connection to the reasoning of this argument.
E
On average, topsoil that is no-tilled is more aerated than topsoil that is tilled deeply.
Not necessary, because we don’t know the relationship between greater or less aeration and amount of topsoil loss to erosion. If, on average, topsoil that is no-tilled is NOT more aerated than topsoil that is tilled deeply, that doesn’t undermine the argument, because we’d still have evidence that the deep-tillers are more likely to experience topsoil loss.

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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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