Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Medium

PT108 S3 Q26 Explanation

Anthropologist: After mapping the complete

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

TopicsAgree/Disagree

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Stimulus

Anthropologist: After mapping the complete dominance hierarchy for a troupe of vervet monkeys by examining their pairwise interaction, we successfully predicted more complex forms of their group behavior by assuming that each monkey had knowledge of the complete hierarchy. Since our prediction was used to reach it was in fact true.

Primatologist: Although I agree that your assumption helped you make those predictions, your conclusion does not follow. You might as well argue that since we can predict the output of some bank cash machines by assuming that these machines these cash machines must really have desires.

What this question is testing

Agree/Disagree

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
26.

Which one of the following is a point about which the anthropologist and the primatologist are

Answer choices

  1. Trap6% picked this

    whether the anthropologist successfully predicted the behavior of individual monkeys by use of the map of

  2. Trap3% picked this

    whether the output of a bank cash machine can be accurately predicted on the basis of knowledge of the requests

  3. Trap10% picked this

    whether vervet monkeys can have knowledge of the complete hierarchy of dominance relations that exists

  4. Correct80% picked this

    whether the fact that the anthropologist's assumption led to such successful predictions provides sufficient grounds for the claim that the vervet monkeys

    Why this is right

    Answer D is correct.

    Skill tested: Agree/Disagree · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

  5. Trap1% picked this

    whether the behavior exhibited by vervet monkeys in experimental situations can be used as the basis for a

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