LSAT 154 – Section 2 – Question 14

LSAT 154 - Section 2 - Question 14

September 2017

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Question
QuickView		 Type Tags Answer
Choices		 Curve Question
Difficulty		 Psg/Game/S
Difficulty		 Explanation
PT154 S2 Q14
+LR
Flaw or descriptive weakening +Flaw
Causal Reasoning +CausR
A
0%
146
B
1%
154
C
4%
151
D
95%
162
E
1%
146
127
135
143
 +Easier 144.659 +SubsectionEasier

Superintendent: Within the school district overall, 11 percent of high school students drop out. However, of the high school students who participate in work internships, only 1 percent drop out. Clearly, then, participation in a work internship decreases the chance that a student will drop out.

Summarize Argument: Phenomenon-Hypothesis
The author concludes that participation in a work internship decreases a student’s chances of dropping out. This is based on the fact that within a certain school district, there’s a correlation between participation in a work internship and decreased chance of dropping out.

Identify and Describe Flaw
The author assumes the correlation between participation in work internships and decreased dropout rate is due to the participation causing decreased dropout rates. This overlooks the possibility that the correlation could be due to something else. Perhaps both the decreased chance of dropping out and participation in work interships are due to another cause (the student’s personality, for example).

A
uses evidence that is in principle impossible to disprove
The evidence is not impossible to disprove. There’s no reason statistics about dropout rates can’t be proven.
B
uses the key term “student” in one sense in a premise and in another sense in the conclusion
The word “student” means the same thing in both the premises and conclusion.
C
generalizes from a single instance of a certain kind to all instances of that kind
The evidence is not a “single instance.” It is based on statistics concerning at least multiple students and dropouts in the school district. Also, the conclusion does not assert something about every work internship or every dropout.
D
infers a specific causal relationship from a correlation that might well have arisen from another cause
The author infers a causal relationship between work internships and decreased dropout rate, even though the correlation between the two things could have been due to something else.
E
contains a premise that presupposes the truth of the conclusion
(E) describes circular reasoning. The conclusion — which asserts that work internships decrease chances of dropping out — is not restated in the premises. The premises present only a correlation between work internships and lower dropout rate.

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LSAT PrepTest 154 Explanations

Section 1 - Logical Reasoning

Section 2 - Logical Reasoning

Section 3 - Reading Comprehension

Section 4 - Logical Reasoning

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