LSAT 152 – Section 1 – Question 19

LSAT 152 - Section 1 - Question 19

November 2018

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT152 S1 Q19
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Causal Reasoning +CausR
Sampling +Smpl
A
12%
161
B
15%
157
C
17%
161
D
44%
164
E
12%
159
150
165
180
 +Hardest 148.23 +SubsectionMedium

Researcher: In an experiment, 500 families were given a medical self-help book, and 500 similar families were not. Over the next year, the average number of visits to doctors dropped by 20 percent for the families who had been given the book but remained unchanged for the other families. Since improved family health leads to fewer visits to doctors, the experiment indicates that having a medical self-help book in the home improves family health.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that having a medical self-help book in the home improves family health. This is based on an experiment in which families that were given a medical self-help book experienced a decrease in doctor visits, whereas similar families that weren’t given such a book did not. In addition, we know that improved family health leads to fewer visits to doctors.

Identify and Describe Flaw
The author assumes that having medical self-help books caused a reduction in doctor visits through improving family health. This overlooks the possibility that it may have caused a reduction in doctor visits through some other mechanism. Perhaps, for example, the books didn’t improve health, but simply made families think they don’t need to visit a doctor.

A
it is possible that the families in the experiment who were not given a medical self-help book acquired medical self-help books on their own
This possibility isn’t significant enough to affect how we interpret the study. As long as families that weren’t given a book ended up being less likely on average to own a self-help book than the ones that were given a book, the study’s results can still be evidence of cause.
B
the families in the experiment could have gained access to medical self-help information outside of books
The conclusion concerns the effect of “having a medical self-help book in the home.” Whether the families could access self-help through other means besides a book doesn’t relate to the effect of having a book in the home.
C
a state of affairs could causally contribute to two or more different effects
The flaw doesn’t concern one cause with multiple effects; it’s about one effect (fewer doc. visits) and two dcauses (book, improved family health). Also, if you view the books as causing two effects (improved health, fewer doc. visits), (C) is consistent with the reasoning.
D
two different states of affairs could each causally contribute to the same effect even though neither causally contributes to the other
The author overlooks that two different states of affairs (having book, improved family health) could each contribute to same effect (fewer doc. visits) even though neither contributes to the other. The books didn’t have to cause fewer visits through improving family health.
E
certain states of affairs that lead families to visit the doctor less frequently could also make them more likely to have a medical self-help book in the home
(E) might be true, but in the experiment 500 families were given a self-help book. So we know how these families got the book in their home. We then observed a decrease in doctor visits for these families after they were given a book.

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LSAT PrepTest 152 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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