Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT116 S3 Q20 Explanation

Interviewer: A certain company released a

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

TopicsFlaw

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Stimulus

Interviewer: A certain company released a model of computer whose microprocessor design was flawed, making that computer liable to did this happen?

Industry spokesperson: Given the huge number of circuits in the microprocessor of any modern computer, not every circuit can be manually checked before a the microprocessor is released.

Interviewer: Then what guarantee do we have that new microprocessors will similarly flawed?

Industry spokesperson: There is no chance of further microprocessor design flaws, since all entirely computer-designed.

What this question is testing

Flaw

Your task

Describe the reasoning error the argument actually commits.

Common trap

Answers that name a real logical flaw the argument doesn't actually make.

Winning move

Articulate the gap in the reasoning yourself, then match it to the choice that describes that 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
20.

The industry spokesperson’s argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds

Answer choices

  1. Bad Evidence Match6% picked this

    presumes, without providing justification, that the microprocessor quality-control procedures of the company mentioned are not representative of those

    The industry rep wasn't assuming that the company whose microprocessor was flawed was an outlier, not representative of the rest of the industry, as this answer choice implies. To the contrary, the industry rep seems to defend that company on very general grounds that would apply to most/all other companies in the industry: too many parts on a circuit to check them all manually.

  2. Out of Scope23% picked this

    ignores the possibility that a microprocessor can have a flaw other than

    Out of Scope: "other types of flaw" This argument is only about whether or not future microprocessors will have a design flaw. Any other type of flaw is irrelevant to the conversation.

  3. Out of Scope9% picked this

    overlooks the possibility that a new computer model is liable to malfunction for reasons other

    Out of Scope: "other than microprocessor flaw" This argument is only about whether future microprocessors will have a design flaw. Flaws with parts other than the microprocessor are irrelevant to this argument.

  4. Opposite1% picked this

    treats a single instance of a microprocessor design flaw as evidence that there will be

    The industry rep is not concluding that there will be many microprocessor design flaws. She's concluding the opposite, that there will be no more of them.

  5. Correct60% picked this

    takes for granted, despite evidence to the contrary, that some computers are not

    Why this is right

    Yes, the industry rep is assuming that the computers that will be designing the microprocessors of the future are perfect, that they will not mess up, and thus there will never be an microprocessor design flaw in the future. Our evidence to the contrary is the fact that the conversation begins with the topic of a computer that messed up. This comes pretty close to being an example of the rarest of the famous flaws, Internal Contradiction.

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

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