LSAT 122 – Section 4 – Question 12

LSAT 122 - Section 4 - Question 12

June 2006

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT122 S4 Q12
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
Link Assumption +LinkA
A
74%
166
B
0%
154
C
17%
158
D
5%
155
E
4%
157
146
154
162
 +Harder 146.485 +SubsectionMedium

Politician: The huge amounts of money earned by oil companies elicit the suspicion that the regulations designed to prevent collusion need to be tightened. But just the opposite is true. If the regulations designed to prevent collusion are not excessively burdensome, then oil companies will make profits sufficient to motivate the very risky investments associated with exploration that must be made if society is to have adequate oil supplies. But recent data show that the oil industry’s profits are not the highest among all industries. Clearly, the regulatory burden on oil companies has become excessive.

A
fails to justify its presumption that profits sufficient to motivate very risky investments must be the highest among all industries
The author assumes that “sufficient profits” must be the “highest profits.” But perhaps oil profits are sufficient to motivate risky investments, even though they’re not the highest among all industries.
B
attacks the character of the oil companies rather than the substance of their conduct
The politician never attacks the character of oil companies, nor does she attack the substance of their conduct. She just argues that regulations don’t need to be tightened because oil companies’ profits aren’t high enough.
C
fails to justify its presumption that two events that are correlated must also be causally related
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of confusing correlation for causation. The politician doesn’t make this mistake. Instead of a causal assumption, she makes a conditional assumption that is not supported in her argument.
D
treats the absence of evidence that the oil industry has the highest profits among all industries as proof that the oil industry does not have the highest profits among all industries
The politician does provide evidence in the form of “recent data” to support her claim that the oil industry does not have the highest profits among all industries.
E
illicitly draws a general conclusion from a specific example that there is reason to think is atypical
This is the cookie-cutter flaw of hasty generalization. The politician doesn’t make this mistake. She draws a specific conclusion about oil industry regulations based on evidence that is also about the oil industry.

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LSAT PrepTest 122 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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