PT154 S4 Q10 ExplanationColumnist: The dangers of mountain

Answer choices, explained

1. A

   Too Weak1% picked this

   whether the number of traffic fatalities in France was higher in 2002 than

   Yes, it weakens somewhat if the author cherry-picked one of the higher fatality years in France. However, it barely changes the logical force of her argument. What if the average fatalities is more like 5000 a year? It would be the same argument if she were saying "80 years = 200 Everest deaths", "1 year = 5000 French auto deaths".

   1%
2. B

   Out of Scope: other countries1% picked this

   whether the number of traffic fatalities in France is usually higher than that

   This is just like (A), in the sense that it somewhat looks like a Sampling issue if the author picked one of the deadliest years in France, or if the author picked one of the deadliest countries for driving. But even if the average auto deaths for a country is 3,000, the logical force of the evidence is the same: "80 years, 200 deaths from climbing Everest" vs. "1 year, 3000 deaths from driving in country X"

   1%
3. C

   Out of Scope: lowering fatalities0% picked this

   whether the number of fatalities among climbers on Mount Everest could be reduced by implementing

   Discussing what could be done to reduce fatalities is totally beside the point. We're assessing whether mountain climbing is as dangerous as the media says it is. How safe it is in the future (if certain measures are implemented) is totally irrelevant.

   0%
4. D

   Correct91% picked this

   how many climbers were on Mount Everest during those 80 years and how many people traveled on

   Why this is right

   This is one of those correct answers that isn't helping you out with understanding the objection, if you didn't already think it. Since there are about 100-200 people who climb Everest each year, you're talking about around 10,000 people who have tried to climb it in those 80 years. There are way more than 10,000 people who drive in France each year. If you're offended, on LSAT's behalf, that I'm pulling in outside knowledge there, yeah, this test sometimes rewards common sense about the world. However, even if these were made up names, it would be a fair correct answer to say "The absolute numbers of deaths are irrelevant to assessing danger. We need the relative rates." They've only given us the numerator of those fractions (Total Deaths / Total Participants). This answer choice is simply saying we need the denominators in order to calculate what % of people climbing Everest vs. driving in France have died.

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

   91%
5. E

   No Impact7% picked this

   how many climbing fatalities there were during those 80 years on mountains other

   This is like (A) and (B). They're all trying to point out that there is some Sampling distortion. 2002 was a deadlier than average year! France is a deadlier than average country to drive in! Maybe Mount Everest isn't a representative mountain. Not only are these objections too small to matter, given how absurdly different the statistics were for Everest vs. France, but the author was actually generous to his opponents by picking one of the most dangerous mountains. If you were trying to hide the danger of mountain climbing, then you would use a safer mountain as a comparison. He used the most dangerous one to make the point that even the most dangerous mountain is still not lookin' so dangerous, compared to driving in France.

   7%