Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT116 S2 Q7 Explanation

Failure to rotate crops depletes

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

TopicsMust be True

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Stimulus

Failure to rotate crops depletes the soil’s nutrients gradually unless other preventive measures are taken. If the soil’s nutrients are completely depleted, additional crops cannot be grown unless fertilizer is applied to the soil. All other things being equal, if vegetables are grown in soil that has had fertilizer applied rather than used on vegetables, the greater the health risks to humans from eating those vegetables.

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
7.

Suppose there were some vegetables that were grown in soil to which fertilizer had never been applied. On the basis of the passage, which one of the following

Answer choices

  1. Contradicted15% picked this

    The soil in which the vegetables were grown may have been completely depleted of nutrients because of an

    We know that the nutrients were not totally depleted. If they were, then crops wouldn't be able to grow there (unless fertilizer is added, which we know there was not).

  2. No Support: impossible crop rotation3% picked this

    It is not possible that the vegetables were grown in soil in which crops

    There's no justification for thinking that these crops weren't grown in soil in which crops had been rotated. We weren't given any information that would allow us to prove any crops weren't grown in crop-rotated soil.

  3. Correct69% picked this

    The vegetables were grown in soil that had not been completely depleted of nutrients but not necessarily soil in

    Why this is right

    Since the crops were grown without fertilizer, we know for sure that the nutrients weren't completely depleted. The second part of this answer has no bearing on us picking it. Saying “not necessarily with X” / “maybe even with X” isn't really committing to any idea. It's saying we haven't definitively proven or refuted the possibility of crop rotation, which is accurate. We have no idea whether these crops were rotated.

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

  4. No Support: pesticide free Illegal Opposite11% picked this

    Whatever the health risks to humans from eating the vegetables, these risks would not be attributable to the

    We don't know if these vegetables are pesticide free. We know that if fertilizer is used, then pesticides must be added. But we don't know that when fertilizer isn't used, then pesticides are not used.

  5. Opposite2% picked this

    The health risks to humans from eating the vegetables were no less than the health risks to humans from eating the same

    This seems to be going against the gist of the passage. We don't know whether our veggies did or didn't have pesticide, but there's definitely a chance they didn't, and so there's definitely a chance that they are less harmful than the same vegetables but with pesticides added.

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