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Course: LSAT > Unit 1
Lesson 7: Logical Reasoning – Video lessons- Identify the conclusion | Video lesson
- Identify an entailment | Video lesson
- Strongly supported inferences | Video lesson
- Disputes | Video lesson
- Identify the technique | Video lesson
- Identify the role | Video lesson
- Identify the principle | Video lesson
- Match the structure | Video lesson
- Match principles | Video lesson
- Identify a flaw | Video lesson
- Match flaws | Video lesson
- Necessary assumptions | Video lesson
- Sufficient assumptions | Video lesson
- Strengthen | Video lesson
- Weaken | Video lesson
- Helpful to know | Video lesson
- Explain | Video lesson
- Resolve a conflict | Video lesson
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Explain | Video lesson
Watch a demonstration of one way to approach a question that asks you to explain an apparent discrepancy on the Logical Reasoning section of the LSAT.
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- Choice A says 'most' wildlife, wouldn't we be making an assumption if we choose that since we don't know if that includes deers or not?(9 votes)
- In this situation, you might need to consider which answer choice requires the fewest assumptions. Since the question stem asks which choice "most" helps to resolve the discrepancy, the answer does not need to be definitive; it just needs to be better than the others. Choice A requires only one assumption: that deer are included in "most wildlife." (@yanjiejack raises another possible assumption that wolf populations would also increase and should affect the deer population, but the assumption that an increasing wolf population does not restrict deer population growth is already given to us in the passage and so does not need to be made again for the answer choice.) When compared with the other choices, A requires the smallest mental jump to explain the deer situation, so it is the best answer. That's my take on it at least.(5 votes)
- How does A expain the increase from 1960-1970?(8 votes)
- 1960-2020 is 60 years. So if an answer addresses the most recent 50 of those 60 years, then I would say that's a pretty good answer.(1 vote)
- The question says which choice "would most help explain..." How could you quit after seeing that A is correct, if you didn't see if any other answer is more correct?(7 votes)
- This makes no sense as the wolves are increasing, but not dramatically. The pesticides would have had an impact on them as well. It make more sense that the number of hunters has decreased. Although, the same amount of deer are being killed, if there are less hunters and the deer population has increased dramatically - less hunters would equal more deer regardless of the same number being killed. I believe C would be the correct answer.(4 votes)
- The passage states "hunters kill no fewer deer today". This could mean that there were 100 hunters killing 1 deer each in 1960, but one hunter killing 100 deer today, in which case there would be fewer hunters, but the population wouldn't be affected whatsoever.(2 votes)
- But isn't the passage saying since the 1960s that answer A suggests 1970 for the pesticides? how about the ten-year gap between these two choices(4 votes)
- It does specify in the passage that deer are hunted in the same numbers "today." A ten year gap is less of an assumption than the others would have to make to be true. The others are self-disqualifying or irrelevant.(1 vote)
- There are questions you say we should predict answer, like the explain or resolve conflict. Do you have a summary of question types to predict and ones not to predict?(4 votes)
- so, B is wrong because of the word "various"?(0 votes)
- I think the more critical word is "recently." Since deer populations have been increasing since the 1960s according to the passage, recent attempts to protect their habitats do not explain the decades long deer population growth. "Recently" could be stretched to include the period from the 1960s onward, but that would be another assumption and make this choice less likely to be the one that "most" explains the discrepancy. "Various" introduces more ambiguity and requires even more assumptions.(4 votes)
- I would have a hard time distinguishing between A and B on this question. I wound up choosing B because the question specifically states that suburban encroachments are a pressure on deer populations.
Pesticides affecting "most" wildlife feels like a larger jump to me than something that is explicitly stated as affecting deer populations. If deer aren't affected by the pesticides then it doesn't matter how long the rule has been in place. Whereas, even though it's only recently, that could be within the past 5 years which seem like it could be enough time for deer populations to recover.(1 vote)
Video transcript
- [Instructor] In this
question we're asked, which one of the following, if true, would most help to explain
the apparent discrepancy described above? We can identify this question
as an Explain Question. The answer will provide information that makes the situation
in the passage make sense and the four wrong choices, why they're not help the
situation make sense, or, make the situation even
more puzzling than it is. Pause your video now if you'd like to try this
question on your own. Otherwise, let's move
on to the explanation. Okay, let's read the stimulus together and as we do, just focus on describing the discrepancy in your own words. Don't think about the answer yet. "The number of deer
living in North America "has increased dramatically
since the 1960s, "even though hunters
kill no fewer deer today. "Moreover, the number of
natural predators of deer, "such as wolves, is on the rise, "and suburbs increasingly
encroach on deer habitats." So with Explain Questions
and Resolve Questions, our first job is to describe the situation that doesn't seem to make sense. We're told here that there are more deer living in North America since the 1960s. Great, but we also
learned that hunters kill no fewer deer today than they used to, and we also learned that
the number of deer's natural predators is increasing, and, that suburbs are
encroaching more and more on deer habitats. If we take all of the
information together, we would actually expect there to be fewer deer living today, right? So, lots of threats to
deer are flourishing, and yet, the number of deer
has increased dramatically. So let's phrase the
discrepancy as a question. Why are there more deer today, even though so many deer
threats have increased? We don't need to make a prediction for these question types, because there could be so
many possible explanations. The most important piece is
to understand the discrepancy in a very clear way. Now, we move to the questions
and evaluate each one against the discrepancy that we observed. We'll ask, does this
choice, as information, provide the light bulb
that we're looking for? Does it make us say, ah,
okay, now I understand why there are more deer living today, even though so many deer
threats have increased? Let's do it. Choice A. "Pesticides that adversely
affected most wildlife "living in North America "have been banned since the 1970s." Let's think about the
impact of this information. If pesticides that hurt
most North American wildlife were banned since the 1970s, that would explain why
there are more deer. They're no longer being
hurt by the pesticides. That means that a potentially
major threat to deer has been removed. Even though other threats are on the rise, it is reasonable that this
threat is more important, so on test day, we could select this and move on to a new question. Let's look at the wrong choices, in case you have questions about them. B, "Recently, attempts have been made "in various parts of North
America to protect deer habitats "from suburban development." This doesn't help us. First of all, we don't know how recently these protective attempts have been made, and we also don't know how
effective those attempts were. We don't know which parts
of North America are counted when it says, "various parts," meaning we don't know if
those are significant parts, so we have to add way too many assumptions to justify this choice, and that's never a good thing when evaluating a choice on test day. Choice C. "The number of deer
hunters in North America "has decreased since the 1960s." At very first glance,
this could be tempting, because it seems like a
good thing for the deer, if the number of deer
hunters has decreased, but remember what the passage told us. "Hunters kill no fewer deer today." So even though the number
of hunters has gone down, the hunters who are left are
still killing as many deer, if not more. So the mystery remains. D reads, "Much of the increase
in the population of wolves "is due to wolves born in captivity "and released into the wild." Okay, so this is explaining
why there are more wolves, but not at all why there are more deer. We can rule this choice out since we know that our task is to explain the increase in deer. Finally, E states, "The
greater the number of deer, "the more likely they are to
be afflicted with problems, "such as famine and disease." This doesn't help explain why
there are more deer today. In fact, if anything, it makes the situation
even more surprising. Since we're told the number of deer has increased dramatically, we would expect them to
be more hurt by problems such as famine and disease. So a choice that makes the
situation even more surprising, is the opposite of what we're
looking for in an answer. So to recap, for Explain Questions, you're reading with the
purpose of formulating the discrepancy, and it's really helpful to
form a question around it, if you can. Why are there more deer today, even though so many threats
to deer have increased? Then, pretend that each choice is a proposed answer to that question, and pick the one that actually
does answer the question and shed light on the situation.