Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT130 S4 Q9 Explanation

Two months ago

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

TopicsMust be True

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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

Two months ago a major shipment of pythons arrived from Africa, resulting in a great number of inexpensive pythons in pet stores. Anyone interested in buying a python, however, should beware: many pythons hatched in Africa are afflicted with a deadly liver disease. Although a few pythons recently hatched in North America early stages, and all pythons die within six months of contracting the disease.

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
9.

Which one of the following statements can be properly inferred from the

Answer choices

  1. Correct67% picked this

    Some pythons hatched in North America may appear fine but will die within six months as a result

    Why this is right

    This Follows from the 2nd HNA ↢some↣ LD and 3rd Statements. LD → DSM HNA ↢some↣ DSM

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

  2. Too Strong16% picked this

    Pythons that hatch in Africa are more susceptible to the liver disease than are pythons that

    While it’s true that a greater proportion of African hatched pythons have the liver disease than American hatched pythons, we don’t know why. It could be that pythons born in both places are equally susceptible to the disease, but that African pythons have greater exposure to other hosts and so are infected at higher rates.

  3. Unsupported Relationship14% picked this

    Any python that has not died by the age of six months does not have

    This depends on when the python contracted the disease. If a python contracted the disease at the age of two months, a python could live past six months and still have the disease.

  4. Too Strong3% picked this

    The pythons are inexpensively priced because many of them suffer from

    While we know that there are inexpensive pythons for sale, We don’t know why. It may just be that pythons from Africa are inexpensive, or it could be that the shipment was so large that this drove down the price.

  5. Out of Scope0% picked this

    Pythons hatched in neither Africa nor North America are not afflicted with

    Nothing is said about pythons born neither in Africa nor in America.

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