LSAT 132 – Section 2 – Question 09

LSAT 132 - Section 2 - Question 09

December 2010

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

Ask a tutor

Target time: 1:39

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
PT132 S2 Q09
+LR
Sufficient assumption +SA
Causal Reasoning +CausR
Link Assumption +LinkA
A
7%
161
B
4%
153
C
82%
164
D
4%
155
E
3%
159
129
143
157
 +Medium 148.345 +SubsectionMedium

A retrospective study is a scientific study that tries to determine the causes of subjects’ present characteristics by looking for significant connections between the present characteristics of subjects and what happened to those subjects in the past, before the study began. Because retrospective studies of human subjects must use the subjects’ reports about their own pasts, however, such studies cannot reliably determine the causes of human subjects’ present characteristics.

Summary
The author concludes that retrospective studies can’t reliably accomplish their goal (determine causes of present characteristics) because they must use the subjects’ self-reported data.

Missing Connection
The conclusion determines that these studies aren’t reliable, but the only support for this is that they use subjects’ self-reported data. We can validly draw the conclusion if we know that self-reported data isn’t reliable.

A
Whether or not a study of human subjects can reliably determine the causes of those subjects’ present characteristics may depend at least in part on the extent to which that study uses inaccurate reports about the subjects’ pasts.
This deals with the right core elements, but isn’t strong enough. And even with a stronger rephrasing, e.g. “... subjects’ present characteristics depend on...”, it would still be wrong because 1) we were not told the reports are inaccurate, 2) we don’t know the extent.
B
A retrospective study cannot reliably determine the causes of human subjects’ present characteristics unless there exist correlations between the present characteristics of the subjects and what happened to those subjects in the past.
Irrelevant. We do not know if there are any correlations or not.
C
In studies of human subjects that attempt to find connections between subjects’ present characteristics and what happened to those subjects in the past, the subjects’ reports about their own pasts are highly susceptible to inaccuracy.
This is a direct link from retrospective studies and an unavoidable part of those studies (self-reported data) to inaccuracy. We can conclude that these studies’ determinations aren’t reliable.
D
If a study of human subjects uses only accurate reports about the subjects’ pasts, then that study can reliably determine the causes of those subjects’ present characteristics.
We are trying to conclude that the studies cannot reliably determine the cause, not that they can. Also, we don’t know if the reports are accurate or not.
E
Every scientific study in which researchers look for significant connections between the present characteristics of subjects and what happened to those subjects in the past must use the subjects’ reports about their own pasts.
The conclusion is only about retrospective studies. It isn’t about all studies that look at these connections.

Take PrepTest

Review Results

LSAT PrepTest 132 Explanations

Section 1 - Reading Comprehension

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

Get full LSAT course

Leave a Reply