Flavonoids are a common component

A free, expert breakdown of this official LSAT Logical Reasoning question.

TopicsMust be True

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Stimulus

Flavonoids are a common component of almost all plants, but a specific variety of flavonoid in apples has been found to be an antioxidant. Antioxidants are known the prevention of heart disease.

What this question is testing

Must be True

Your task

Break the argument into its conclusion and evidence, then do exactly what the question stem asks with that structure.

Common trap

Answers that sound relevant to the topic but don't connect to the argument's actual reasoning.

Winning move

Predict what a right answer must do, then test each choice against the conclusion-evidence gap.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question

Which one of the following can be properly inferred from

Answer choices

Too Strong1% picked this
A diet composed largely of fruits and vegetables will help to
Too Strong: Will Out of Scope: Largely Fruit/Veggie Diet We think that eating apples could help prevent heart disease but will help is a little stronger than what we know. This answer is talking about "a diet composed largely of fruits and veggies", but are apples included in that diet? Not necessarily. Apples are the only fruit we know that could have a causal impact on heart disease, so unless we know that apples are involved, we can't say for sure that this diet will help.
1%
Too Strong: Essential3% picked this
Flavonoids are essential to preventing heart
All we can say is that one specific variety of flavonoid could help prevent heart disease. This answer is saying, "If you don't have flavonoids, you cannot prevent heart disease". That's way too strong. There might be many, many ways to prevent heart disease, and this specific flavonoid is just one of them. After all, there are probably plenty of other foods that have antioxidants in them.
3%
Too Strong: Will Prevent4% picked this
Eating at least one apple each day will prevent
We don't have language this strong; if X is "a factor in the prevention of heart disease" then we can say that consuming more X can lessen your chances of heart disease, but we can't guarantee it will prevent heart disease.
4%
Correct90% picked this
At least one type of flavonoid helps to prevent
Why this is right
Instead of the overly charged "will prevent" that other answers had, this has the softer, more provable language of "helps to prevent". We know that at least one type of flavonoid is an antioxidant, and that antioxidants help to prevent heart disease, so we can "cancel out the middle-man" and derive that at least one type of flavonoid helps to prevent heart disease.
Skill tested: Must be True · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
90%
Out of Scope: Common Cause2% picked this
A diet deficient in antioxidants is a common cause of
We don't have any information about what causes heart disease, so we can't derive any must be true idea about common causes of heart disease.
2%

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