Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Medium

PT157 S3 Q16 ExplanationFuture overall demand for professors

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

TopicsPrinciple-Conform

Keep going in LSAT Lab

  • 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

Free to start

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

Future overall demand for professors can be predicted with reasonable accuracy from current birth rates. But the accuracy of predictions of future demand for music professors jazz studies professors lower still.

What this question is testing

Principle-Conform

Situation

Birth rates can predict how many professors will be needed. Music professors? Less accurately. Jazz studies professors? Even less. The more you zoom in, the worse the prediction gets.

Evaluate

General predictions work well because they average out the randomness. Specific predictions are at the mercy of niche trends that birth rates cannot capture.

Goal

Find the principle that says: bigger picture, better prediction.

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

The question
16.

The situation described above best illustrates which one of the

Answer choices, explained

  1. Bad Trigger Match5% picked this

    The more detailed and complete the evidence, the more precise predictions based on

    The same evidence — birth rates — is used for all three predictions. The evidence does not change in detail or completeness. The accuracy changes because the target becomes more specific, not because the evidence becomes more detailed.

  2. Correct74% picked this

    The more general the level of a prediction, the more accurate

    Why this is right

    The situation shows exactly this: the most general prediction (all professors) is most accurate, and accuracy declines as the prediction targets more specific subgroups (music professors, then jazz studies professors). More general level of prediction, more accuracy.

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

  3. Bad Outcome Match10% picked this

    Predicting future trends becomes more difficult as the events those predictions concern become

    The situation does not involve temporal distance. All predictions are about the future from the same present point. Accuracy varies because of specificity, not because some events are further in the future.

  4. Bad Trigger Match3% picked this

    The more detailed and complete the evidence, the more confidence we can have in predictions

    Same as answer A — the evidence does not vary in detail or completeness. Birth rates are the same evidence used for all three prediction levels. Confidence should vary with prediction specificity, not evidence quality.

  5. Contradicted8% picked this

    Predictions based only on general trends are unlikely to

    The situation shows the opposite: predictions based on general trends (birth rates) are reasonably accurate for overall professor demand. This answer claims such predictions are "unlikely to be accurate," which directly contradicts the first sentence of the stimulus.

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