Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Medium

PT128 S3 Q12 Explanation

Clothes dryers manufactured by Archway

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

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Stimulus

Clothes dryers manufactured by Archway Appliances, Inc. are of poor quality. Crucial bolts are missing and some sections are assembled in the wrong order, thereby creating a shock and fire hazard. Concern for safety and quality use shoddy, substandard components in its clothes dryers.

What this question is testing

Weaken

Your task

Find the choice that makes the argument's conclusion less likely to be true.

Common trap

Answers that look negative but attack a claim the argument never relied on.

Winning move

Find the assumption the argument depends on, then pick the choice that undermines it.

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

The question
12.

The argument is most vulnerable to criticism on the grounds that it fails to consider

Answer choices

  1. Unrelated to Parts2% picked this

    there is not a single known case of an Archway dryer starting a fire

    This answer tries to minimize the overall concern about the crappy quality of these dryers by saying, "even though there's a shock and fire hazard created, it doesn't seem like there's been any actual cases of that yet". But we're looking for an answer that specifically helps us argue that the components could be high quality.

  2. No Impact16% picked this

    there are aspects of dryer construction that are more relevant to the quality of the finished

    This has nothing to do with our goal of arguing that even though the dryer is crappy overall, the component parts might be of fine quality.

  3. No Impact2% picked this

    Archway's dryers consistently perform well and enjoy considerable

    This has nothing to do with our goal of arguing that even though the dryer is crappy overall, the component parts might be of fine quality.

  4. Correct78% picked this

    a shoddily constructed appliance can be made of

    Why this is right

    This perfectly talks about the gap between the evidence (this appliance overall is shoddily constructed) and the conclusion (the parts this appliance is made from must be shoddy). This answer basically calls out the flawed Whole to Part move that the argument commits. Just because the Whole has the property of being shoddy doesn't mean the component parts also have that quality.

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

  5. Less About the Reasoning2% picked this

    Archway's other product lines exhibit careful and safe assembly and use

    This answer does weaken somewhat. If the company is known to use high-quality components in other product lines, then it hurts the plausibility that they use shoddy components in this product line. But when we compare (D) to (E), which one better shows how this reasoning is vulnerable to criticism? (E) only goes after the conclusion. (D) goes after the reasoning, because it attacks the assumed link between the evidence and the conclusion.

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