Practice Question Questions Forum

[JohnV]

I've started taking a practice section each morning, trying to focus on one type of section each week. I'd like to post some questions here that I got wrong so I can figure out why they are wrong, a lot of these sections come from old LSAT test. I'm not entirely sure if it is ok to post questions from previous LSATs online but these are from the publicly accessible June 2007 test on LSAT.com. If posting further questions from other sources please let me know. So here goes:

Green = Correct Answer
Red = My Incorrect Answer

16. Taylor: Researchers at a local university claim that
61 percent of the information transferred during a
conversation is communicated through nonverbal
signals. But this claim, like all such
mathematically precise claims, is suspect, because
claims of such exactitude could never be
established by science.

Sandra: While precision is unobtainable in many areas
of life, it is commonplace in others. Many
scientific disciplines obtain extremely precise
results, which should not be doubted merely
because of their precision.

The statements above provide the most support for
holding that Sandra would disagree with Taylor about
which one of the following statements?

(A) Research might reveal that 61 percent of the
information taken in during a conversation is
communicated through nonverbal signals.
(B) It is possible to determine whether 61 percent of
the information taken in during a conversation
is communicated through nonverbal signals.
(C) The study of verbal and nonverbal
communication is an area where one cannot
expect great precision in one’s research
results.
(D) Some sciences can yield mathematically precise
results that are not inherently suspect.
(E) If inherently suspect claims are usually false,
then the majority of claims made by scientists
are false as well.

----

17. Hospital executive: At a recent conference on nonprofit
management, several computer experts
maintained that the most significant threat faced
by large institutions such as universities and
hospitals is unauthorized access to confidential
data. In light of this testimony, we should make
the protection of our clients’ confidentiality our
highest priority.

The hospital executive’s argument is most vulnerable to
which one of the following objections?

(A) The argument confuses the causes of a problem
with the appropriate solutions to that problem.
(B) The argument relies on the testimony of experts
whose expertise is not shown to be sufficiently
broad to support their general claim.
(C) The argument assumes that a correlation
between two phenomena is evidence that one is
the cause of the other.
(D) The argument draws a general conclusion about
a group based on data about an
unrepresentative sample of that group.
(E) The argument infers that a property belonging to
large institutions belongs to all institutions.

---

On 16 I legitimately thought C was the answer, on 17 I made an educated guess because these types of question's wordings confuse seem to confuse me. What I'm really curious about on 17 is how B is correct, because I had made a mental X on B which turned out to be the correct answer.

Thanks to anyone/everyone who helps me out with this and sorry if this is in the wrong section or turns out to be inappropriate to post here. If everything works out with this I'd like to continue posting questions that I get wrong throughout my practice sessions for anyone that wants to discuss them with me.

[DrackedaryMaster]

On 17, think of it this way. What do Universities cover: Academics, Teacher Strikes, Protection of Property from Vandals, Letting in unscrupulous students who will damage their reputation, etc.

And yet despite whatever spectrum of challenges are for these universities to face and meet like the one above, the biggest one of all (according to computer experts) is Information Security.

This would be like teachers saying low teacher wages are the biggest challenge, or the AdComs saying letting bad students in who might damage the school's reputation is the biggest one. The opinion of what the biggest challenge appears to be is coming from a group that has a specialized interest in that particular subject, and may or may not have knowledge of the other challenges. Seriously, how do the computer experts know if teacher strikes due to low salaries won't cripple the school's mission more? They don't, and they can't. So that's my guess for B.

[JohnV]

On 17, think of it this way. What do Universities cover: Academics, Teacher Strikes, Protection of Property from Vandals, Letting in unscrupulous students who will damage their reputation, etc.

And yet despite whatever spectrum of challenges are for these universities to face and meet like the one above, the biggest one of all (according to computer experts) is Information Security.

This would be like teachers saying low teacher wages are the biggest challenge, or the AdComs saying letting bad students in who might damage the school's reputation is the biggest one. The opinion of what the biggest challenge appears to be is coming from a group that has a specialized interest in that particular subject, and may or may not have knowledge of the other challenges. Seriously, how do the computer experts know if teacher strikes due to low salaries won't cripple the school's mission more? They don't, and they can't. So that's my guess for B.

Ah, actually that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the input.

[DrackedaryMaster]

Also, I agree the wording on C in 16 is confusing but the way I approached the question was how the LRB said to use the agree/disagree test:

C) The study of verbal and nonverbal
communication is an area where one cannot
expect great precision in one’s research
results.
(D) Some sciences can yield mathematically precise
results that are not inherently suspect.


The first speaker said ALL mathematically precise results are suspect. The second speaker say that not all (some) of the precise results should not be doubted mainly because of the precision. So in answer choice (D), it's clear that the first speaker would disagree with this statement, while the second speaker would agree with it.


The best I can think of for why answer C is wrong based on the LRB is that we have no knowledge of what the second speaker believes in regards to verbal/non-verbal communication, so we don't know where they stand in relation to this since the first speaker is the only one who brought this up.

Dang, if any of these are somewhat good explanations, I sure as heck hope the stupid 149 I got unprepared in June 08 won't turn into another 149 or 150. Good luck with the rest of your studying!

[DrackedaryMaster]

Oops, one more thing I forgot. You might want to generalize your LSAT LR questions (Like the PT, Q#, and Answer Choices), as I don't believe the mods permit posting of copyrighted material.

[JohnV]

Oops, one more thing I forgot. You might want to generalize your LSAT LR questions (Like the PT, Q#, and Answer Choices), as I don't believe the mods permit posting of copyrighted material.

Yea, I don't know what I'm allowed to post and what I'm not allowed to post. I figured this would be a way to test it since it is publicly available at their website.