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

Question 376

Editorialist: Some people argue that ramps and other accommodations for people using wheelchairs are unnecessary in certain business areas because those areas are not frequented by wheelchair users. What happens, however, is that once ramps and other accommodations are installed in these business areas, people who use wheelchairs come there to shop and work.

Which one of the following is most strongly supported by the editorialist's statements?

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Owners of business areas not frequented by wheelchair users generally are reluctant to make modifications.
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Businesses that install proper accommodations for wheelchair users have greater profits than those that do not.
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Many businesses fail to make a profit because they do not accommodate wheelchair users.
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Most businesses are not modified to accommodate wheelchair users.
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Some business areas are not frequented by wheelchair users because the areas lack proper accommodations.

Question 377

Many people think that the only way to remedy the problem of crime is by increasing the number of police officers, but recent statistics show that many major cities had similar ratios of police officers to citizens, yet diverged widely in their crime rates.

The statistics cited function in the argument to

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establish that the number of police officers does not need to be increased
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illustrate the need for increasing the number of police officers in major cities
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prove that there are factors other than the number of police officers that are more important in reducing the crime rate
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demonstrate that there is no relation between the number of police officers and the crime rate
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suggest that the number of police officers is not the only influence on the crime rate

Question 378

Scientists hoping to understand and eventually reverse damage to the fragile ozone layer in the Earth's upper atmosphere used a spacecraft to conduct crucial experiments. These experiments drew criticism from a group of environmentalists who observed that a single trip by the spacecraft did as much harm to the ozone layer as a year's pollution by the average factory, and that since the latter was unjustifiable so must be the former.

The reasoning in the environmentalists' criticism is questionable because it

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treats as similar two cases that are different in a critical respect
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justifies a generalization on the basis of a single instance
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fails to distinguish the goal of reversing harmful effects from the goal of preventing those harmful effects
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attempts to compare two quantities that are not comparable in any way
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presupposes that experiments always do harm to their subjects

Reference / correct answer:

treats as similar two cases that are different in a critical respect

The ozone layer again. This spacecraft and the factory may produce equivalent harm to it, but the latter’s is part of the everyday course of doing business, while the former’s was specifically done in the service of finding a way to solve the ozone layer problem. By ignoring the differing contexts of the damage and the blatant moral difference between the two, the author has come up with a failed analogy.

The author’s conclusion isn’t a generalization [justifies a generalization on…], so the problem can’t be that he is using only one example to justify one. See [presupposes that experiments…], below for an example of a generalization. Option [fails to distinguish the goal of…] creates an irrelevant distinction between reversal of the ozone layer problem (which is pertinent to the argument) and prevention (which isn’t). Contrary to option [attempts to compare two quantities that…] the spacecraft and factory are comparable: Each is a technological creation that causes harm to the ozone layer. The problem is that they’re not completely comparable, which gets us back to option [treats as similar two cases that…]. Option [presupposes that experiments…] is generalization about experiments doesn’t match the specific analysis of one situation that the author presents.

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