Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Hard

PT154 S4 Q25 ExplanationThe technical sophistication of commercial

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

TopicsMust be True

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Stimulus

The technical sophistication of commercial fishing equipment increased steadily from 1960 through 2010, which enabled the commercial fishing industry to harvest a greater percentage of the total amount of fish, by weight, in the world’s oceans in each succeeding year during that time. The commercial 1960 until 1995 but did not increase after 1995.

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
25.

If the statements above are true, which one of the following must

Answer choices, explained

  1. Out of Scope: number of fish26% picked this

    After 1995, the number of fish harvested each year by the commercial fishing industry increased, but the average weight

    Nothing in this paragraph discusses number of fish at all, just weight, so we can't derive anything about number of fish.

  2. Out of Scope: beyond 201011% picked this

    After 2010, improvements in commercial fishing equipment did not enable the fishing industry to harvest a greater percentage of the total amount of fish,

    We don't have any information about anything after 2010, other than that the fishing industry's harvest by weight did not increase. It's still quite possible that the % of available fish kept increasing. Just because the first sentence has a cutoff date doesn't mean that after that date things changed. I can say "From 1960 to 2010, humans lived on Earth". That's a true statement and it does not logically imply that "after 2010, humans did not live on Earth".

  3. Correct54% picked this

    The total amount of fish, by weight, in the world’s oceans decreased during the period

    Why this is right

    This was our prediction. Since the fishing industry is catching a higher % of the available fish each year, but the amount they're catching is not going up, that means that the total available fish is going down.

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

  4. Too Strong: significantly lower7% picked this

    The commercial fishing industry’s harvest, by weight, was significantly lower in 2010 than it

    We were told that the harvest weight did not increase from 1995 to 2010; but this is saying that the weight was significantly lower. We can't go from didn't increase to got much lower.

  5. Out of Scope: before 19602% picked this

    No significant improvements in commercial fishing equipment occurred

    Similar to (B), we don't know anything about what happened prior to 1960. Just because technological sophistication of fishing equipment increased from 1960 to 2010 doesn't mean that this time period was the first time there had ever been a significant improvement in fishing equipment.

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