Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT12 S1 Q18 Explanation

Frieda: Lightning causes fires and damages

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

TopicsFlaw

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Stimulus

Frieda: Lightning causes fires and damages electronic equipment. Since lightning rods can prevent any major damage, have one.

Erik: Your recommendation is pointless. It is true that lightning occasionally causes fires, but faulty wiring and overloaded circuits cause far more equipment than lightning does.

What this question is testing

Flaw

The Exchange

Frieda says: install lightning rods on every building — they prevent lightning damage. Erik says: pointless, because wiring and overloaded circuits cause more fires than lightning does.

Evaluate

Watch what Erik actually shows. He shows that other risks are bigger. But Frieda was not arguing that lightning is the biggest risk — she was arguing that lightning rods are a cheap, effective way to prevent the lightning damage that does happen.

Imagine someone said: "You should wear sunscreen — it prevents sunburn." And you replied: That does not actually rebut the sunscreen recommendation. Sunscreen still prevents sunburns; the existence of bigger risks does not make it useless.

Goal

The right answer should call out that Erik never showed any actual downside to Frieda's recommendation — he just showed there are bigger problems elsewhere.

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.

Erik’s response fails to establish that Frieda’s recommendation should not be acted on

Answer choices

  1. Correct56% picked this

    does not show that the benefits that would follow from Frieda’s recommendation would be offset

    Why this is right

    This is the precise gap in Erik's response. Frieda recommended lightning rods because they prevent damage from lightning — an actual benefit. Erik's reply just points to a different (larger) source of fires; he never offers a downside to lightning rods that would outweigh that benefit. To show Frieda's recommendation should not be acted on, Erik would need to show that the benefits are offset by some disadvantage. He never does.

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

  2. Bad Objection18% picked this

    does not offer any additional way of lessening the risk associated

    Erik does not need to suggest another way to address lightning risk to rebut Frieda. The real problem is that what he did say (other risks are bigger) does not actually rebut her. Failing to provide an alternative is not the flaw — failing to give a real reason against her recommendation is.

  3. Inappropriate Appeals0% picked this

    appeals to Frieda’s emotions rather than to

    Erik does not appeal to emotion. He gives a factual claim (wiring and overloaded circuits cause more fires than lightning) and draws a conclusion from it. That is a reasoning move, not an emotional one. The flaw lies elsewhere.

  4. Bad Description23% picked this

    introduces an irrelevant comparison between overloaded circuits and

    Erik is not comparing overloaded circuits to faulty wiring against each other — he is grouping them together as causes that are bigger than lightning. There is no internal comparison between the two things, so this is not the flaw. Even if there were, that comparison is not what makes Erik's response weak; the weakness is that his point does not undermine the case for lightning rods.

  5. Bad Description4% picked this

    confuses the notion of preventing damage with that of

    Erik does not confuse damage with inconvenience. Both Frieda and Erik are talking about damage (fires, equipment damage). The flaw is not a confusion of concepts — it is that Erik never shows lightning rods come with any cost that offsets their benefit.

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