LSAT 134 – Section 2 – Question 23

LSAT 134 - Section 2 - Question 23

October 2011

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT134 S2 Q23
+LR
+Exp
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Conditional Reasoning +CondR
Rule-Application +RuleApp
A
3%
155
B
4%
154
C
11%
158
D
77%
165
E
5%
156
144
153
161
 +Harder 146.032 +SubsectionMedium

J.Y.’s explanation

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Principle: It is healthy for children to engage in an activity that promotes their intellectual development only if engaging in that activity does not detract from their social development.

Application: Although Megan’s frequent reading stimulates her intellectually, it reduces the amount of time she spends interacting with other people. Therefore, it is not healthy for her to read as much as she does.

Summarize Argument
The author concludes that it’s not healthy for Megan to read as much as she does. This is based on the principle that an activity that promotes a child’s intellectual development is healthy only if it doesn’t detract from social development. And, we know that Megan’s reading stimulates her intellectually, but reduces the time she spends interacting with other people.

Identify and Describe Flaw
The author assumes that if an activity reduces the amount of time Megan interacts with others, it must detract from her social development. This is the assumption that makes the author believe that Megan’s frequent reading interacts with the principle to prove that her reading isn’t healthy.

A
It misinterprets the principle as a universal claim intended to hold in all cases without exception, rather than as a mere generalization.
The principle is not a mere generalization. It’s a conditional rule that doesn’t have exceptions. If an activity that promotes a child’s intellectual development detracts from social development, then it’s not healthy for children to engage in it.
B
It overlooks the possibility that the benefits of a given activity may sometimes be important enough to outweigh the adverse health effects.
The conclusion is that Megan’s reading isn’t healthy. Whether there are benefits to reading that outweigh health effects has no impact on whether her reading isn’t healthy.
C
It misinterprets the principle to be, at least in part, a claim about what is unhealthy, rather than solely a claim about what is healthy.
The principle is about what’s unhealthy. It tells us that if the activity that promotes intellectual development detracts from social development, then it’s not healthy for children to engage in it. So it’s not “solely” a claim about what is healthy.
D
It takes for granted that any decrease in the amount of time a child spends interacting with others detracts from that child’s social development.
The author assumes that Megan’s reading detracts from her social development because it reduces the time she spends interacting with others. This overlooks the possibility that reducing time interacting with others might not detract from her social development.
E
It takes a necessary condition for an activity’s being healthy as a sufficient condition for its being so.
A necessary condition for an activity’s being healthy is that it doesn’t detract from social development. The author does not argue that an activity is healthy because it doesn’t detract from social development.

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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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