LSAT Practice Test 85 - Logical Reasoning 1 – Questions + Answers

Ullman: Plato argued that because of the harmful ways in which music can manipulate the emotions, societies need to put restrictions on the music their citizens hear. However, because musicians seek not to manipulate the emotions but to create beauty, this argument is misguided.

Ullman’s argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it fails to consider the possibility that

Physician: A tax on saturated fat, which was intended to reduce consumption of unhealthy foods, has been repealed after having been in effect for only seven months. The tax was apparently having some undesirable and unintended consequences, encouraging people to travel to neighboring countries to purchase certain foods, for example. Nonetheless, the tax should not have been repealed so soon.

Which one of the following principles, if valid, most helps to justify the physician’s conclusion regarding the tax?

Legislator: A foreign company is attempting to buy FerroMetal, a domestic iron-mining company. We should prohibit this sale. Since manufacturing is central to our economy, we need a dependable supply of iron ore. If we allow a foreign company to buy FerroMetal, we will have no grounds to stop foreign companies from buying other iron-mining companies. Soon foreigners will control most of the iron mining here, leaving our manufacturers at their mercy. The end result will be that our manufacturers will no longer be able to rely on a domestic supply of iron ore.

Which one of the following most accurately describes a flaw in the reasoning of the legislator’s argument?

Food company engineer: I stand by my decision to order the dumping of small amounts of chemicals into the local river even though there is some evidence that this material may pose health problems. I fish in the river myself and will continue to do so. Furthermore, I will have no problem if other food manufacturers do what our company does.

The engineer's reasoning most closely conforms to which one of the following principles?

Political strategist: Clearly, attacking an opposing candidate on philosophical grounds is generally more effective than attacking the details of the opponent’s policy proposals. A philosophical attack links an opponent’s policy proposals to an overarching ideological scheme, thereby telling a story and providing context. This makes the attack emotionally compelling.

Which one of the following is an assumption required by the political strategist’s argument?

Michaela: I think doctors who complain about patients doing medical research on the Internet are being a little unfair. It seems only natural that a patient would want to know as much as possible about his or her condition.
Sam: It is not unfair. Doctors have undergone years of training.

How can you maintain that a doctor’s opinion is not worth more than something an untrained person comes up with after searching the Internet? Sam’s response indicates that he interpreted Michaela’s remarks to mean that

Principle: People should not feed wild animals because it makes them dependent on humans and less likely to survive on their own.
Situation: Bird lovers commonly feed wild birds to attract them to their yards and gardens.

Which one of the following, if assumed, would most help to justify treating the human feeding of wild birds as an exception to the principle above?

Normally, political candidates send out campaign material in order to influence popular opinion. But the recent ads for Ebsen’s campaign were sent to too few households to ser/e this puipose effectively. The ads were evidently sent out to test their potential to influence popular opinion. They covered a wide variety of topics, and Ebsen’s campaign has been spending heavily on follow-up to gauge their effect on recipients.

Which one of the following most accurately expresses the conclusion drawn in the argument above?

Last year, pharmaceutical manufacturers significantly increased the amount of money they spent promoting new drugs, which they do mainly by sending sales representatives to visit physicians in their offices. However, two years ago there was an average of 640 such visits per representative, whereas last year that figure fell to 501. So the additional promotion must have been counterproductive, making physicians less willing to receive visits by pharmaceutical sales representatives.

Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the argument?

Archaeologist: The extensive network of ancient tracks on the island of Malta was most likely created through erosion caused by the passage of wheeled vehicles. Some researchers have suggested that the tracks were in fact manually cut to facilitate the passage of carts, citing the uniformity in track depth. However, this uniformity is more likely indicative of wheel diameter: Routes were utilized until tracks eroded to a depth that made vehicle passage impossible.

Which one of the following is the overall conclusion of the archaeologist’s argument?

The goal of reforesting degraded land is to create an area with a multitude of thriving tree species. But some experienced land managers use a reforesting strategy that involves planting a single fast-growing tree species.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy in the information above?

An independent computer service company tallied the service requests it receives for individual brands of personal computers. It found that, after factoring in each brand’s market share, KRV brand computers had the largest proportion of service requests, whereas ProBit brand computers had the smallest proportion of service requests. Obviously, ProBit is the more reliable personal computer brand.

Which one of the following, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?

When scientific journals began to offer full online access to their articles in addition to the traditional printed volumes, scientists gained access to more journals and easier access to back issues. Surprisingly, this did not lead to a broader variety of articles being cited in new scientific articles. Instead, it led to a greater tendency among scientists to cite the same articles that their fellow scientists cited.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to explain the surprising outcome described above?

Researcher: People are able to tell whether a person is extroverted just by looking at pictures in which the person has a neutral expression. Since people are also able to tell whether a chimpanzee behaves dominantly just by looking at a picture of the chimpanzee’s expressionless face, and since both humans and chimpanzees are primates, we conclude that this ability is probably not acquired solely through culture but rather as a result of primate biology.

Which one of the following, if true, most strengthens the researcher’s argument?

All the apartments on 20th Avenue are in old houses. However, there are twice as many apartments on 20th Avenue as there are old houses. Therefore, most old houses on 20th Avenue contain more than one apartment.

The reasoning in the argument above is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that the argument

Scientist: An orbiting spacecraft detected a short-term spike in sulfur dioxide in Venus’s atmosphere. Volcanoes are known to cause sulfur dioxide spikes in Earth’s atmosphere, and Venus has hundreds of mountains that show signs of past volcanic activity. But we should not conclude that volcanic activity caused the spike on Venus. No active volcanoes have been identified on Venus, and planetary atmospheres are known to undergo some cyclical variations in chemical composition.

Which one of the following, if true, most weakens the scientist’s argument?

Increasing the electrical load carried on a transmission line increases the line’s temperature, and too great a load will cause the line to exceed its maximum operating temperature. The line’s temperature is also affected by wind speed and direction: Strong winds cool the line more than light winds, and wind blowing across a line cools it more than does wind blowing parallel to it.

Which one of the following is most strongly supported by the information above?

In grasslands near the Namib Desert there are “fairy circles”—large, circular patches that are entirely devoid of vegetation. Since sand termite colonies were found in every fairy circle they investigated, scientists hypothesize that it is the burrowing activities of these termites that cause the circles to form.

Which one of the following, if true, most supports the scientists’ hypothesis?

Munroe was elected in a landslide. It is impossible for Munroe to have been elected without both a fundamental shift in the sentiments of the electorate and a well-run campaign. Thus, one cannot avoid the conclusion that there has been a fundamental shift in the sentiments of the electorate.

Which one of the following arguments is most closely parallel in its reasoning to the argument above?

For pollinating certain crops such as cranberries, bumblebees are far more efficient than honeybees. This is because a bumblebee tends to visit only a few plant species in a limited area, whereas a honeybee generally flies over a much broader area and visits a wider variety of species.

Which one of the following is most strongly supported by the information above?

Economist: Currently the interest rates that banks pay to borrow are higher than the interest rates that they can receive for loans to large, financially strong companies. Banks will not currently lend to companies that are not financially strong, and total lending by banks to small and medium-sized companies is less than it was five years ago. So total bank lending to companies is less than it was five years ago.

The economist’s conclusion follows logically if which one of the following is assumed?

Counselor: To be kind to someone, one must want that person to prosper. Yet, even two people who dislike each other may nevertheless treat each other with respect. And while no two people who dislike each other can be fully content in each other’s presence, any two people who do not dislike each other will be kind to each other.

If the counselor’s statements are true, then which one of the following must be false?

A gram of the artificial sweetener aspartame is much sweeter than a gram of sugar. Soft drinks that are sweetened with sugar are, of course, sweet, so those sweetened with aspartame must be even sweeter. Thus people who regularly drink soft drinks sweetened with aspartame will develop a preference for extremely sweet products.

Which one of the following arguments exhibits flawed reasoning that is most similar to flawed reasoning in the argument above?

Economist: If minimum wage levels are low, employers have a greater incentive to hire more workers than to buy productivity-enhancing new technology. As a result, productivity growth, which is necessary for higher average living standards, falls off. Conversely, high minimum wage levels j result in higher productivity. Thus, raising our currently low minimum wage levels would ) improve the country’s overall economic health more than any hiring cutbacks triggered by the raise would harm it.

Which one of the following, if true, most strengthens the economist’s argument?

Mayor: Periodically an ice cream company will hold a free ice cream day as a promotion. Showing up may not cost you any money, but it sure does cost you time. We learn from this that when something valuable costs no money you get overconsumption and long lines. Currently, those who drive to work complain about the congestion they face in their rush-hour commutes. What is needed is a system for charging people for the use of roads during rush hour. Then rush hour congestion will abate.

The claim that when something valuable costs no money you get overconsumption and long lines plays which one of the following roles in the mayor’s argument?

The advertising campaign for Roadwise auto insurance is notable for the variety of its commercials, which range from straightforward and informative to funny and offbeat. This is unusual in the advertising world, where companies typically strive for uniformity in advertising in order to establish a brand identity with their target demographic. But in this case variety is a smart approach, since purchasers of auto insurance are so demographically diverse.

Which one of the following, if true, adds the most support for the conclusion of the argument?