The official’s conclusion is most

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

TopicsStrengthen

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Stimulus

The local agricultural official gave the fruit growers of the District 10 Farmers’ Cooperative a new pesticide that they applied for a period of three years to their pear orchards in place of the pesticide they had formerly applied. During those three years, the proportion of pears lost to insects was significantly at least in the short term, in limiting the loss of certain fruit to insects.

What this question is testing

Strengthen

Your task

Find the choice that makes the argument's conclusion more likely to be true.

Common trap

Answers that are consistent with the argument but add no real support, or that strengthen a claim the argument doesn't make.

Winning move

Locate the gap between evidence and conclusion, then pick the choice that closes it.

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

The question

The official’s conclusion is most strongly supported if which one of the following groups of trees did not show a reduction in losses

Answer choices

Opposite11% picked this
peach trees grown in the district that were treated with the new pesticide instead of
If pear trees treated with the new pesticide didn't show a reduction in losses to insects, that would weaken the argument.
11%
Opposite2% picked this
peach trees grown in the district that were treated with the new pesticide in addition
If pear trees treated with the new pesticide didn't show a reduction in losses to insects, that would weaken the argument.
2%
Correct69% picked this
pear trees grown in the district that were treated with the old pesticide instead of
Why this is right
The #1 way to Strengthen a causal argument is to increase its plausibility via a "Control Group" answer: things not exposed to the supposed Cause didn't experience the supposed Effect. If pear trees that were treated old instead of new didn't show a reduction in losses to insects, that's very strong evidence that the new pesticide really was the causal difference-maker for all those pear trees that did show a reduction in losses to insects.
Skill tested: Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.
69%
Unclear Impact3% picked this
pear trees grown in a neighboring district that were treated with neither the old nor
Since this is a different neighborhood, there are all kinds of Alternate Explanations that could come into play. We have no idea how to use this data to inform our judgment of whether the new pesticide should be celebrated as the reason the pear trees in our neighborhood saw a reduction in insect damage.
3%
Opposite15% picked this
pear trees grown in a neighboring district that were treated with the new pesticide instead
If pear trees treated with the new pesticide didn't show a reduction in losses to insects, that would weaken the argument.
15%

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