Logical ReasoningDifficulty: Medium

PT16 S2 Q1 Explanation

The city’s center for disease control

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

TopicsParadox

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Stimulus

The city’s center for disease control reports that the rabies epidemic is more serious now than it was two years ago: 2 years ago less than 25 percent of the local raccoon population was infected, whereas today the infection has spread to more than 50 percent of the raccoon population. However, the in the past 12 months only 18 cases of rabid raccoons were confirmed.

What this question is testing

Paradox

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
1.

Which one of the following, if true, most helps to resolve the apparent discrepancy between

Answer choices

  1. Trap12% picked this

    The number of cases of rabies in wild animals other than raccoons has increased in

  2. Correct72% picked this

    A significant proportion of the raccoon population succumbed to rabies in the

    Why this is right

    Answer B is correct.

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

  3. Trap13% picked this

    The symptoms of distemper, another disease to which raccoons are susceptible, are virtually identical to

  4. Trap2% picked this

    Since the outbreak of the epidemic, raccoons, which are normally nocturnal, have increasingly been seen

  5. Trap1% picked this

    The number of confirmed cases of rabid raccoons in neighboring cities has also decreased over

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