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

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Showing 181–183 of 430 questions

Question 181

It is not good for a university to have class sizes that are very large or very small, or to have professors with teaching loads that are very light or very heavy. After all, crowded classes and overworked faculty cripple the institution's ability to recruit and retain both qualified students and faculty.

Which one of the following, if added as a premise to the argument, most helps to justify its conclusion?

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Professors who have very light teaching loads tend to focus their remaining time on research.
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Classes that have very low numbers of students tend to have a lot of classroom discussion.
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Very small class sizes or very light teaching loads indicate incompetence in classroom instruction.
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Very small class sizes or very light teaching loads are common in the worst and the best universities.
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Professors with very light teaching loads have no more office hours for students than professors with normal teaching loads.

Question 182

Sales manager: The highest priority should be given to the needs of the sales department, because without successful sales the company as a whole would fail.

Shipping manager: There are several departments other than sales that also must function successfully for the company to succeed. It is impossible to give the highest priority to all of them.

The shipping manager criticizes the sales manager's argument by pointing out

Select an option, then click Submit answer.

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that the sales department taken by itself is not critical to the company's success as a whole
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the ambiguity of the term "highest priority"
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that departments other than sales are more vital to the company's success
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an absurd consequence of its apparent assumption that a department's necessity earns it the highest priority
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that the sales manager makes a generalization from an atypical case

Reference / correct answer:

an absurd consequence of its apparent assumption that a department's necessity earns it the highest priority

The stem is packed with clues. It tells us 1) what the shipping manager does (criticize the sales manager) and what we’re to do (recognize the basis for the criticism). Let’s start with the person being criticized: The evidence Keyword “because” bisects the sales manager’s argument, the conclusion preceding it and the evidence naturally following it. Sales should get the highest priority, because without a successful sales department, the company is sunk. And it’s not too hard to anticipate a criticism of this line of reasoning: There are other necessary departments whose success are crucial to the company, the shipping manager points out. They can’t all get highest priority. option [an absurd consequence of its apparent…] gets at this issue: The sales manager bases her argument on the necessity of the sales department, without considering the possible necessity of other departments.

If necessity alone is the criterion, then the “absurd consequence” is having to award the highest priority to a bunch of different departments, which is by definition impossible.

Question 183

Researchers have found that people who drink five or more cups of coffee a day have a risk of heart disease 2.5 times the average after corrections are made for age and smoking habits. Members of the research team say that, on the basis of their findings, they now limit their own daily coffee intake to two cups.

Which one of the following, if true, indicates that the researchers' precaution might NOT have the result of decreasing their risk of heart disease?

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The study found that for people who drank three or more cups of coffee daily, the additional risk of heart disease increased with each extra daily cup.
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Per capita coffee consumption has been declining over the past 20 years because of the increasing popularity of soft drinks and also because of health worries.
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The study did not collect information that would show whether variations in level of coffee consumption are directly related to variations in level of stress, a major causal factor in heart disease.
provides such a factor: stress. It tells us that we don’t know what the relationship between coffee consumption and stress is, and that stress definitely causes heart disease. IfC.is true, it’s just as likely that coffee is not causally related to heart disease at all, but is simply correlated with the real cause, stress. If that’s the case, cutting down on the java may very well not decrease the risk of heart disease as the researchers seem to expect.
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Subsequent studies have consistently shown that heavy smokers consume coffee at about 3 times the rate of nonsmokers.
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Subsequent studies have shown that heavy coffee consumption tends to cause an elevated blood-cholesterol level, an immediate indicator of increased risk of heart disease.

Reference / correct answer:

The study did not collect information that would show whether variations in level of coffee consumption are directly related to variations in level of stress, a major causal factor in heart disease.
provides such a factor: stress. It tells us that we don’t know what the relationship between coffee consumption and stress is, and that stress definitely causes heart disease. IfC.is true, it’s just as likely that coffee is not causally related to heart disease at all, but is simply correlated with the real cause, stress. If that’s the case, cutting down on the java may very well not decrease the risk of heart disease as the researchers seem to expect.

Although the question stem doesn’t make it obvious, this is a weaken question. We’re asked to find the choice which, if true, suggests that cutting down on coffee might not lower the risk of heart disease. Given that coffee drinkers tend to get heart disease more often than the average, it might seem prudent to cut down on coffee. It certainly appears as if the researchers have interpreted the evidence to mean that coffee drinking causes increased risk of heart disease. But for all we know, the connection between coffee drinking and heart disease could be a coincidence. Maybe there’s something about coffee drinkers other than their coffee drinking that makes them more likely to get heart disease.

C. provides such a factor: stress. It tells us that we don’t know what the relationship between coffee consumption and stress is, and that stress definitely causes heart disease. IfC.is true, it’s just as likely that coffee is not causally related to heart disease at all, but is simply correlated with the real cause, stress. If that’s the case, cutting down on the java may very well not decrease the risk of heart disease as the researchers seem to expect.

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