LSAT 108 – Section 3 – Question 10

LSAT 108 - Section 3 - Question 10

February 2000

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT108 S3 Q10
+LR
Weaken +Weak
A
1%
165
B
5%
160
C
92%
166
D
1%
160
E
1%
161
120
128
144
 +Easiest 147.273 +SubsectionMedium

Many people joke about Friday the thirteenth being an unlucky day, but a study showed that in one year approximately 17 percent of people scheduled to fly canceled or did not show up for their flights on Friday the thirteenth—a rate higher than that on any other day and date in that year. This shows that a significant percentage of the population would rather disrupt their travel plans than risk flying on a supposedly unlucky day.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis

The author hypothesizes that a significant proportion of the population are willing to disrupt their plans to avoid flying on an “unlucky” Friday the thirteenth. This hypothesis is based on the observation that during a particular year, more people cancelled or didn’t show up to their flights on Friday the thirteenth than on any other day that year.

Notable Assumptions

The author assumes that the reason people didn’t show up for their flights on Friday the thirteenth was the unlucky date, and not some other reason. There aren’t that many Fridays the thirteenth in a single year, so maybe some other significant factor just happened to arise on one or more Fridays the thirteenth that year.

A
People who fly tend to be professionals who as a group are less superstitious than the general public.

Even if people who fly are less superstitious, that doesn’t mean they’re not superstitious—maybe an even higher percentage of the general public would have skipped their flights. This doesn’t provide an alternative explanation, or make the author’s explanation any less likely.

B
Surveys show that less than 5 percent of the population report that they believe that Friday the thirteenth is an unlucky day.

This just doesn’t give us enough context to know how it relates to the 17 percent of people who missed their flights on Friday the thirteenth. Maybe only a very tiny percentage of people fly, and they’re unusually likely to be superstitious—we don’t know.

C
Weather conditions at several major airports were severe on the Fridays that fell on the thirteenth in the year of the study.

This weakens by providing an alternative explanation for why more people missed their flights on Friday the thirteenth. If there happened to be severe weather those days, it makes sense that people would miss their flights even without superstition being involved.

D
In the year of the study, automobile traffic was no lighter on Friday the thirteenth than on other Fridays.

This does not weaken, because the domain of the argument is specific to flights. It would be perfectly reasonable for people to fear flying on an unlucky day but not fear driving, because driving is a much more routine activity.

E
The absentee rate among airline workers was not significantly higher than normal on the Fridays that fell on the thirteenth in the year of the study.

This does not weaken, because there are other factors that explain why airline workers might show up to work on an “unlucky” day. So this doesn’t really contradict the observed data about passengers, and still doesn’t explain the phenomenon.

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LSAT PrepTest 108 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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