Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Medium

PT113 S2 Q18 Explanation

Some critics of space exploration

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

TopicsMost Supported

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Stimulus

Some critics of space exploration programs claim that they are too costly to be justified. Moreover, there is the very real risk of a debilitating explosion—most experts say something like a 1-in-70 chance per flight. Budgetary pressures to make the programs cheaper only serve to undermine safety: one program’s managers uncovered a of the pressure to produce results as quickly and cheaply as possible.

What this question is testing

Most Supported

Premises

The passage walks through a chain of causes: critics complain about cost; that complaint puts budgetary pressure on the programs; the pressure to be cheaper and faster ends up causing manufacturing flaws — which are a safety problem.

Evaluate

So we have two problems on the table: cost (the original complaint) and safety (the manufacturing flaws). And the passage tells us that the response to the cost problem is making the safety problem worse.

For Most Supported, we want the simplest, most directly supported takeaway. The cleanest one here is: trying to solve one problem (cost) can make another problem (safety) worse.

Goal

The right answer captures that dynamic — addressing one problem can exacerbate another.

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

The question
18.

The passage conforms most closely to which one of the

Answer choices

  1. Correct72% picked this

    Attempts to solve one problem can lead to the exacerbation of

    Why this is right

    This is the clearest takeaway. The passage describes attempts to solve the cost problem (cheaper programs) leading to a worse safety problem (manufacturing flaws). That's exactly: attempting to solve one problem leads to the exacerbation of another. Direct, well-supported inference.

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

  2. Unsupported6% picked this

    Safety risks are sometimes ignored in the name of

    The passage doesn't describe safety being ignored "in the name of scientific progress." The pressure described is budgetary — about making programs cheaper, not about advancing science. (B) attributes a motivation the passage doesn't support.

  3. Half Scope16% picked this

    Safety is often sacrificed in order to reach a goal as

    The passage describes pressure to produce results "as quickly and cheaply as possible" — both speed and cost. (C) names only speed. More importantly, (C) generalizes ("often") beyond the single space-program example the passage gives, while (A) sticks closer to what's actually supported. The passage doesn't establish that safety is "often" sacrificed for speed across many domains.

  4. Unsupported4% picked this

    Bureaucratic mistakes can lead to quality reduction

    The passage doesn't mention bureaucratic mistakes — it talks about budgetary pressure leading to manufacturing flaws. "Bureaucratic mistakes" is a different concept from "budgetary pressure causing flaws," and the passage doesn't describe one causing the other.

  5. Too Strong3% picked this

    Space exploration is too dangerous to

    The passage relays critics' arguments about cost and safety without endorsing the conclusion that space exploration is too dangerous to continue. It actually opens with "some critics claim" — language that distances the author from any verdict. (E) overshoots what the passage supports.

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