PrepTest 155, Section 2, Question 8
If a garden does not receive plenty of(51 more words not shown)
The reasoning in the argument(6 more words not shown)
- Afails to specify(9 more words not shown)
- Binfers a cause(3 more words not shown)
- Cconfuses a cause(3 more words not shown)
- Dtakes a set(5 more words not shown)
- Erelies on a(7 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Good water, sunlight, and soil give Patricia's garden a chance. They don't promise a successful harvest.
The opening rule tells us what the garden needs to be productive. Patricia has chosen a location suited to water and sunlight and enriched the soil with fertilizer and compost. So far, so good: she has addressed the requirements the argument lists.
But what if bad weather destroys the plants? The garden could have the listed conditions and still run into another problem. Nothing tells us that satisfying this set of requirements eliminates every possible obstacle.
That's the difference between something necessary and something sufficient. A necessary condition is something a result requires. A sufficient condition is enough to guarantee the result.
What we’re looking for
For the flaw question, we want the answer saying that the argument treats requirements as a guarantee. It moves from 'Patricia has what her garden needs' to 'Her garden will be productive' without earning that last step.
Working the answers
- A
We don't need a special definition of ideal to understand the argument. The location is well suited to receiving the water and sunlight the garden needs. Even granting that favorable description, we can still ask whether another problem might prevent productivity. The trouble is the guarantee, not uncertainty about this ordinary word.
- B
A correlation would be an observed association between two things. The argument doesn't report that gardens with one feature tend to have another and then infer a cause from that pattern. It gives a rule about required conditions and applies it incorrectly. Pick the description of that reasoning, not a familiar label for a different mistake.
- C
The argument doesn't swap which thing causes which. It never reasons that productivity must create rich soil because rich soil helps productivity, for example. It treats meeting the listed requirements as enough for success. That is a different error from confusing a cause with its effect.
- DCorrect
Water, sunlight, and rich soil are presented as necessary conditions for productivity. The author treats Patricia's satisfaction of those requirements as sufficient to establish productivity. But the bad-weather possibility shows the gap: having the listed necessities doesn't rule out some other reason the garden might fail.
- E
There is no sample of gardens being used to draw a general conclusion. We have a stated rule and information about Patricia's garden. The problem is how the rule is applied, not whether a group of observed gardens represents a larger population.
More Flaw questions
Learn the LSAT our way
Our platform drills Flaw questions at your level and adjusts as you improve.