LSAT-Section-1-Logical-Reasoning Section One : Logical Reasoning - Practice Questions

Question 319

Cigarette companies claim that manufacturing both low-and high-nicotine cigarettes allows smokers to choose how much nicotine they want. However, a recent study has shown that the levels of nicotine found in the blood of smokers who smoke one pack of cigarettes per day are identical at the end of a day's worth of smoking, whatever the level of nicotine in the cigarettes they smoke.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain the finding of the nicotine study?

Select an option, then click Submit answer.

○
Blood cannot absorb more nicotine per day than that found in the smoke from a package of the lowest-nicotine cigarettes available.
○
Smokers of the lowest-nicotine cigarettes available generally smoke more cigarettes per day than smokers of high-nicotine cigarettes.
○
Most nicotine is absorbed into the blood of a smoker even if it is delivered in smaller quantities.
○
The level of tarin cigarettes is higher in low-nicotine cigarettes than it is in some high-nicotine cigarettes.
○
When taking in nicotine by smoking cigarettes is discontinued, the level of nicotine in the blood decreases steadily.

Reference / correct answer:

Blood cannot absorb more nicotine per day than that found in the smoke from a package of the lowest-nicotine cigarettes available.

Here’s a popular LSAT topic: cigarettes. And we know from the stem that we’re looking for a choice that helps make a study’s finding more understandable. “Explain” questions are a subset of Paradox questions, and we shouldn’t be surprised if the finding is unusual or puzzling. And so it is, as the ever-helpful Contrast Keyword “However” suggests. By producing both low- and high-nicotine cigarettes, the cigarette companies think they’re offering smokers a choice as to how much nicotine they wish to consume. But the study found equal levels of nicotine in the blood of smokers who smoke one pack a day, no matter what the level of nicotine in their cigarettes. This is certainly hard to understand, but perhaps you picked up on the shift between nicotine consumed and nicotine found in the blood – perhaps there’s something about the latter that evens things out no matter how much nicotine is initially imbibed. That’s worth keeping in mind as we hit the choices, and look…

Question 320

Editorial: The premier's economic advisor assures her that with the elimination of wasteful spending the goal of reducing taxes while not significantly decreasing government services can be met. But the premier should not listen to this advisor, who in his youth was convicted of embezzlement. Surely his economic advice is as untrustworthy as he is himself, and so the premier should discard any hope of reducing taxes without a significant decrease in government services.

Which one of the following is a questionable argumentative strategy employed in the editorial's argument?

Select an option, then click Submit answer.

○
rejecting a proposal on the grounds that a particular implementation of the proposal is likely to fail
○
trying to win support for a proposal by playing on people's fears of what could happen otherwise
○
criticizing the source of a claim rather than examining the claim itself
○
taking lack of evidence for a claim as evidence undermining that claim
○
presupposing what it sets out to establish

Question 321

Figorian Wildlife Commission: The development of wetlands in industrialized nations for residential and commercial uses has endangered many species. To protect wildlife, we must regulate such development in Figoria: future wetland development must be offset by the construction of replacement wetland habitats. Thus, development would cause no net reduction of wetlands and pose no threat to the species that inhabit them.

Figorian Development Commission: Other nations have flagrantly developed wetlands at the expense of wildlife. We have conserved. Since Figorian wetland development might not affect wildlife and is necessary for growth, we should allow development. We have as much right to govern our own resources as countries that have already put their natural resources to commercial use.

Which one of the following is an assumption on which the argument advanced by the Figorian Wildlife Commission depends?

Select an option, then click Submit answer.

○
More species have been endangered by the development of wetlands than have been endangered by any other type of development.
○
The species indigenous to natural wetland habitats will survive in specially constructed replacement wetlands.
○
In nations that are primarily agricultural, wetland development does not need to be regulated.
○
Figorian regulation of development has in the past protected and preserved wildlife.
○
The species that inhabit Figorian wetlands are among the most severely threatened of the designated endangered species.

Reference / correct answer:

The species indigenous to natural wetland habitats will survive in specially constructed replacement wetlands.

It’s the Wildlife vs. the Development Commission in this debate, and first we’ll focus on wildlife as the stem mandates, looking for a missing piece of the puzzle. The Wildlife folks maintain that wetland development has endangered many species, and to protect wildlife future wetlands must be offset by the development of replacement habitats. That way, reasons the Commission, there will be no loss of wetlands and no threat to species. But what if the construction of the replacement habitats, or something else about them, does endanger the species that would inhabit them? That would sink the argument, right? So the Wildlife Commission, in making this argument, must be assuming that their placement habitats will be conducive to the survival of species that would otherwise be in natural wetlands. Choice [The species indigenous to natural…] speaks to this issue, and the Denial Test is easily applied: If the species can’t survive in the new special replacement wetlands, then what’s the point?

LSAT-Section-1-Logical-Reasoning – Section One : Logical Reasoning