LSAT 132 | Section 4 | Logical Reasoning: Q2

LR Question 2 Explanation

QUESTION TEXT: To discover what percentage of teenagers believe in…

QUESTION TYPE: Principle

CONCLUSION: The survey is ambiguous.

REASONING: The survey question was ambiguous.

ANALYSIS: This is sort of like a must be true question. We want a statement supported by the information in the argument.

You might have been unsure why the question was ambiguous. It’s because “influence objects with your thoughts” doesn’t necessarily mean telekinesis. If I think about picking up a coffee cup, then I can influence the movements of the coffee cup by actually picking it up.

___________

1. The survey didn’t use an uncontroversial statement. It used a statement that could be interpreted as being uncontroversial.
2. This is too broad. We know that one statement had multiple interpretations. We can’t conclude that all statements have multiple interpretations.
3. We have no support for this. We only know about one survey which had a badly phrased question. We have no idea how people respond to well phrased questions.
4. CORRECT. This has the most support. We know of one survey with a poorly phrased, ambiguous question. That survey lead to ambiguous responses. This is a weak answer, but it’s the best one.
5. Nonsense. We know of one statement about psychic phenomena that can be naturalistic. But some statements about psychic phenomena couldn’t be naturalistic. For example: “Some people have magic, psychic powers that defy the laws of nature”. There’s no naturalistic interpretation for that statement.

Recap: The question begins with “To discover what percentage of teenagers”. It is a Principle question. To practice more Principle questions, have a look at the LSAT Questions by Type page.