LSAT 134 – Section 2 – Question 18

LSAT 134 - Section 2 - Question 18

October 2011

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT134 S2 Q18
+LR
+Exp
Must be false +MBF
A
6%
156
B
80%
164
C
4%
155
D
6%
157
E
4%
157
139
149
159
 +Medium 146.032 +SubsectionMedium

Journalist: Recent studies have demonstrated that a regular smoker who has just smoked a cigarette will typically display significantly better short-term memory skills than a nonsmoker, whether or not the nonsmoker has also just smoked a cigarette for the purposes of the study. Moreover, the majority of those smokers who exhibit this superiority in short-term memory skills will do so for at least eight hours after having last smoked.

Summary

A smoker who has just smoked a cigarette will typically display significantly better short-term memory skills than a nonsmoker, even if the nonsmoker has also just smoked.

Most of these regular smokers will continue to display superior short-term memory skills for at least eight hours after their last cigarette.

Notable Valid Inferences

Most smokers will display better short-term memory skills than will most non-smokers immediately after both parties have smoked a cigarette.

Most smokers will display better short-term memory skills than will most non-smokers immediately after the smoker smoked a cigarette and the nonsmoker did not.

Most smokers will display better short-term memory skills than will most non-smokers for at least eight hours after the smoker’s last cigarette.

A
The short-term memory skills exhibited by a nonsmoker who has just smoked a cigarette are usually substantially worse than the short-term memory skills exhibited by a nonsmoker who has not recently smoked a cigarette.

Could be true. We have no information about how short-term memory skills exhibited by nonsmokers who have not recently smoked a cigarette compare with those exhibited by nonsmokers who have recently smoked, so we can’t conclude that (A) must be false.

B
The short-term memory skills exhibited by a nonsmoker who has just smoked a cigarette are typically superior to those exhibited by a regular smoker who has just smoked a cigarette.

Must be false. This directly refutes the information in the stimulus: we know that the short-term memory skills exhibited by the typical nonsmoker who has just smoked a cigarette will be worse than those exhibited by the typical regular smoker who has just smoked a cigarette!

C
The short-term memory skills exhibited by a nonsmoker who has just smoked a cigarette are typically superior to those exhibited by a regular smoker who has not smoked for more than eight hours.

Could be true. We don’t know how nonsmokers’ short-term memories stack up against smokers’ short-term memories once those smokers have gone over 8 hours without a cigarette!

D
A regular smoker who, immediately after smoking a cigarette, exhibits short-term memory skills no better than those typically exhibited by a nonsmoker is nevertheless likely to exhibit superior short-term memory skills in the hours following a period of heavy smoking.

Could be true. The stimulus does nothing to rule out the possibility that the regular smoker described in (D) could experience a boost in short-term memory skills after smoking heavily, even if their short-term memory skills were not superior immediately after one cigarette.

E
The short-term memory skills exhibited by a regular smoker who last smoked a cigarette five hours ago are typically superior to those exhibited by a regular smoker who has just smoked a cigarette.

Could be true. We have no information about what happens to smokers’ superior short-term memories during the five hours after their last cigarette—maybe they improve before dropping off later!

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LSAT PrepTest 134 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Logical Reasoning

Section 4 - Reading Comprehension

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