Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT125 S2 Q19 Explanation

The coach of the Eagles

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

TopicsFlaw

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Full official LSAT questions are available through LawHub. This page provides LSAT Lab's explanation, strategy, and review tools without republishing the full official question.

Stimulus

The coach of the Eagles used a computer analysis to determine the best combinations of players for games. The analysis revealed that the team has lost only when Jennifer was not playing. Although no computer was needed to discover this information, this sort of information is valuable, and in the game will ensure that the Eagles will win.

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
19.

The argument above is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds

Answer choices

  1. Not a Flaw34% picked this

    infers from the fact that a certain factor is sufficient for a result that the absence of that factor is

    This describes the contrapositive form of a conditional relationship. However a contrapositive is not flawed reasoning.

  2. Wrong Flaw3% picked this

    presumes, without providing justification, that a player's contribution to a team's win or loss can be reliably quantified

    The analysis revealed that the team has lost only when Jennifer was not playing, it did not try to further quantify her contribution.

  3. Wrong Flaw1% picked this

    draws conclusions about applications of computer analyses to sports from the evidence of

    This describes flawed reasoning that generalizes from a single example. However, this argument does not generalize from a single case but rather predicts a future case based on all previous cases.

  4. Correct53% picked this

    presumes, without providing justification, that occurrences that have coincided in the past must

    Why this is right

    This correctly describes a temporal fallacy. The present or the future simply may not look like the past.

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

  5. Contradiction9% picked this

    draws a conclusion about the value of computer analyses from a case in which computer analysis provided no facts

    The argument does not draw a conclusion about the value of computer analyses.

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