LSAT 112 | Section 1 | Logical Reasoning: Q15

LR Question 15 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: In one study, engineering students who prepared for an…

QUESTION TYPE: Principle – Strengthen

CONCLUSION: It isn’t always a good idea to buy advanced technological tools.

REASONING: The argument gives a couple of examples where people who trained with low tech methods did just as well as people who used high tech methods.

ANALYSIS: The engineers and military personnel are just given as examples. They aren’t important to the argument except as illustrations of how people can learn without expensive tools.

The right answer tells us not to invest in expensive tools if less expensive tools work just as well.

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1. This doesn’t matter. Engineers and military personnel were just used as examples. The argument could equally have mentioned circus trainers and scuba divers who used non-advanced educational tools.
2. This doesn’t matter: both methods produced equally knowledgeable personnel.
3. Same as A. The two groups were only given as examples. And we’re trying to say that spending lots of money isn’t always justified.
4. CORRECT. This gets “If you invest ➞ no other tools” and the contrapositive “if other tools ➞ don’t invest” In this case, we had less expensive tools that were equally effective. So it was correct not to invest.
5. This doesn’t help. Excluding expensive materials reduces variety.