LSAT 113 – Section 3 – Question 17

LSAT 113 - Section 3 - Question 17

June 2002

You need a full course to see this video. Enroll now and get started in less than a minute.

Ask a tutor

Target time: 0:37

This is question data from the 7Sage LSAT Scorer. You can score your LSATs, track your results, and analyze your performance with pretty charts and vital statistics - all with a Free Account ← sign up in less than 10 seconds

Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT113 S3 Q17
+LR
+Exp
Inference +Inf
Rule-Application +RuleApp
Value Judgment +ValJudg
A
92%
166
B
1%
160
C
1%
151
D
3%
161
E
3%
156
127
138
149
 +Easier 146.265 +SubsectionMedium

Because addictive drugs are physically harmful, their use by athletes is never justified. Purists, however, claim that taking massive doses of even such nonaddictive drugs as aspirin and vitamins before competing should also be prohibited because they are unnatural. This is ridiculous; almost everything in sports is unnatural, from high-tech running shoes to padded boxing gloves to highly-specialized bodybuilding machines. Yet, none of these is prohibited on the basis of its being unnatural. Furthermore, we should be attending to far more serious problems that plague modern sports and result in unnecessary deaths and injuries. Therefore, the use of nonaddictive drugs by athletes should not be prohibited.

Summary
Addictive drugs are physically harmful.
Athletes are never justified in using addictive drugs.
Some people claim that, because nonaddictive drugs are unnatural, athletes should not be permitted to take large amounts of such drugs before competing.
There are lots of unnatural things used in sports—running shoes, boxing gloves—and these things are not prohibited.
We don’t currently do enough to address the serious problems in modern sports that cause unnecessary deaths and injuries.

Very Strongly Supported Conclusions
There are more serious problems in modern sports than nonaddictive drugs.
The use of nonaddictive drugs does not typically result in unnecessary deaths and injuries in modern sports.
A thing should not be banned from sports solely because that thing is unnatural.

A
The fact that something is unnatural is not a sufficient reason for banning it.
Very strongly supported. The author both concedes that nonaddictive drugs are unnatural and affirms that they should not be banned. Together, these statements allow us to infer that a thing’s unnaturalness is not sufficient reason to ban it from sports.
B
There is nothing unnatural about the use of nonaddictive drugs by athletes.
Anti-supported. The author cedes that nonaddictive drugs are unnatural, although she does not believe that this is sufficient reason to prohibit their use.
C
The use of addictive drugs by athletes should be prohibited because addictive drugs are unnatural.
Anti-supported. The author does not believe that anything should be prohibited solely because it is unnatural. She believes that addictive drugs should be banned, but because they’re physically harmful, not because they’re unnatural.
D
Some of the unnecessary deaths and injuries in modern sports are caused by the use of addictive drugs by athletes.
Unsupported. While we do know that addictive drugs are physically harmful, we can’t infer that they cause unnecessary deaths and injuries. The physical harm they inflict could take another form, like illness.
E
The use of addictive drugs by athletes is a less serious problem than are unnecessary injuries.
Unsupported. We don’t know how addictive drug use stacks up against unnecessary deaths and injuries—the drugs could cause these things, for all we know! We know that the use of nonaddictive drugs by athletes is less serious than unnecessary injuries, but that isn’t what (E) says.

Take PrepTest

Review Results

LSAT PrepTest 113 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

Get full LSAT course

Leave a Reply