Logical Reasoning

PT140 · S3 · Q1 Advertisement: GreenBank gives all

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

  • Save & drill this skill — build targeted practice sets from questions like this one

  • Video walkthroughs — watch every question solved step by step

  • 81 official LSATs — as questions, timed sections & full-length tests

Start practicing free

Advertisement: GreenBank gives all of its customers unlimited free automatic teller machine (ATM) use.

Conclusion (So, clearly)

It costs more to bank at TekBank than at GreenBank.

Evidence

GreenBank gives all customers unlimited free ATM usage. TekBank charges 25 cents for each ATM transaction.

Evaluate

Given that ... a GreenBank customer pays nothing to use the ATM, whereas a TekBank customer pays 25 cents each time they use the ATM,

How could we argue that ... it actually costs more (or the same) to bank at GreenBank?

Well, when it comes to ATM transactions, clearly GreenBank is cheaper, but is that the only potential source of cost when it comes to evaluating "how much it costs to bank" somewhere?

Maybe there's a fee to open your account. Maybe there's a fee for buying checks or placing money orders. Maybe there's an online banking fee.

It's possible that TekBank is costlier when it comes to ATM usage, but cheaper when it comes to setting up the account, getting checks, paying insufficient fund fees, wiring money, etc.

Goal

Look for an answer saying that even though ATM fees are cheaper at GreenBank, there might be other costs involved with banking at GreenBank that make it more costly overall than TekBank.

Technically, we could call this a Part vs. Whole or Sampling flaw (two of the 10 famous flaws), because the evidence is looking at a part/sample of the cost of banking at each bank and then assuming the same thing would be true about the overall cost of banking at each bank.

1.

The reasoning in the advertisement's argument is misleading in that the argument

  1. bases a recommendation solely on

    Bad Conclusion Match

    The conclusion of an argument is based on the evidence, so when we read "bases X solely on Y", the X should match the conclusion and the Y should match the evidence. Was the conclusion a recommendation? No, it wasn't. The conclusion is just a descriptive, quantitative idea. I can say "it costs more to buy a Tesla than it does to buy a Prius", but that doesn't mean I'm recommending that someone buy a Prius.

    2% picked this

  2. presents claims that are irrelevant

    Not Irrelevant

    The conclusion is about which bank is more costly to bank at. The evidence is about one of the costs involved in banking at each bank. So the evidence is definitely relevant to the issue under discussion.

    0% picked this

  3. Correct

    draws a conclusion about the

    Why this is right

    Since this answer says, "draws a conclusion about X solely on the basis of Y", we'd expect X to match the conclusion and Y to match the evidence. Was the conclusion about the overall cost of a service? Sure it's saying that "overall, it costs more to bank at TekBank than at GreenBank". Was the evidence only talking about the cost of one component of that service? Yes, the evidence only told us which bank was cheaper to bank at, when it comes to ATM fees. This matches the argument and reflects a complain we have with the logic: there's no way to judge whether one service is more expensive than another overall by simply comparing one line item of cost involved.

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

    96% picked this

  4. concludes that a component of

    Reversed Parts

    Since this answer says, "concludes that a component must have a property that the whole possesses", we'd be matching it with an argument that went from Whole to Part: the evidence would establish a property that a service as a whole possesses, and then the conclusion would say that a component also has that certain property. Our argument went from Part to Whole. ATM fees (one part of banking at each bank) are more costly at T-bank than at G-bank. Thus, banking (overall) is more costly at T-bank than at G-bank. Our argument "concludes that a whole service must have a property that one component of the service has". One component of TekBank's banking service has the property of "being more costly than GreenBank", and the author concludes that the service as a whole at TekBank must have the property of "being more costly than GreenBank". This answer would match an argument that said, "It is more costly overall to bank at TekBank than at GreenBank. Thus, the ATM fees must be more costly overall at TekBank than at GreenBank."

    1% picked this

  5. concludes that a claim must

    Trap

    Bad Conclusion Match Not Unproven vs. Proven False Was the conclusion saying that a claim must be false? Nope. It just says, "overall, it costs more to bank at TekBank than at GreenBank".. This answer describes one of the 10 famous flaws, Unproven vs. Proven False, in which an author thinks that since no one has proven X (or because someone has made a bad argument in favor of X), that X must therefore be false.

    0% picked this

Continue the review in LSAT Lab

Save this question, watch the video walkthrough, and drill similar questions in your LSAT Lab account.

Save and practice this skill
LSAT Lab

Turn this review into a targeted study plan.

Save this question, drill more like it, watch the video walkthrough, and track your progress in your LSAT Lab account.

Start practicing free