LSAT

PrepTest 14
Explained
a guide to the february, 1995 exam
 © 2006 Kaplan, Inc.

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SECTION I:
LOGIC GAMES
Game 1: Company Employees
Questions 1–6
The Action: We’re asked to group five employees—F,
G, H, K, and L—(a Godsend; more entities would have
made this game considerably less manageable) into
three categories—president, manager, and technician.
There’s an extra dimension in this one: Some
employees supervise other employees. The Key Issues
are:
1) What employees can, must, or cannot be distributed
into each group?
2) What employees can, must, or cannot supervise
what other employees?
The Initial Setup: This is not an easy setup to get a
handle on, because we want to include not only the
consideration of position, but also who supervises
whom. One way is to mimic a “family tree” type of
game, with entities placed above and below each other
and connected by lines. This way we can place entities
who supervise over those they supervise and connect
them with lines, like so (the exact numbers of each
position will have to wait for the rules):
President
FGHKL Manager
Technician
The Rules:
This game has many vital rules built into the opening
paragraph:
We’re told that only the president is not supervised,
and that each employee is supervised by one employee
who is either the president or a manager. We can infer
then that technicians cannot supervise anyone.
We’re also told that the supervised employee has a
different position than his or her supervisor. Since the
supervised employee and the supervisor cannot hold
the same position, this means that all managers are
supervised by the president and all technicians are
supervised by a manager or the president.
Section I: Logic Games
These basic rules are just as important as the indented
ones. If you missed them, the game is undoable.
1) Only one president means that only one of our
employees will go unsupervised. Note how Logic
Games tend to reflect real life situations. It makes
sense that there is only one president, just as it makes
sense that the employees can only supervise those
that are of a lower level.
2) At least one of the people that the president
supervises will be a manager. Don’t make the mistake
of assuming that this rule means that the president
must supervise more than one employee; that’s not
what the rule states. It’s quite possible that the
president super vises exactly one employee, a
manager. At this point though, the president could also
supervise one or more technicians.
3) This rule will prove vital. We know that the president
is unsupervised (opening paragraph), and that a
manager cannot supervise another manager (opening
paragraph). So if each manager supervises at least
one employee, we now know that there must be at
least as many technicians as managers.
4) Don’t just write “F supervises no one.” Consider
what that means. We learned from the setup that only
technicians do not supervise anyone, so instead of
rewriting the rule, we can put F directly into our diagram
as one of the technicians.
5) You will want to make a note reminding yourself that
G must supervise two employees, but once again, first
stop and think about what this tells us. We can put G
right into our diagram by noting that she must either be
the president or at least a manager (since technicians
do not supervise anyone).
Key Deductions: We’ve already jumped the gun and
made a few deductions from the opening paragraph
and the rules (it’s okay to deduce as you go along; we
usually discuss deduction in a separate paragraph in
these written explanations for the sake of clarity. But
there’s more to think about before moving on to the
questions. With only five entities and one (F) solidly
fixed to a group (Technician), you can bet that it would
be worth our time to consider the numbers game and
drive it to something concrete. Five entities and exactly
one of them is president. What could be the numbers
breakdown of president, managers, and technicians,
respectively? The only possibilities are 1, 1, 3 and 1,
2, 2; we inferred from Rule 3 that the number of
managers can’t be greater than the number of
technicians.
1
PrepTest 14 Explained
We could even take this thinking one step further by
combining it with Rule 5. If G is a manager, then the
setup has to be 1, 1, 3. Do you see why? If G’s a
manager, the requirement that she supervises exactly
two employees (technicians in this case), wouldn’t
leave any technicians for the other manager to
supervise in the 1, 2, 2 setup.
Going another step further, what if we know that there
are two managers? Well, that means that the setup is
1, 2, 2, and G must be the president. G can only be
the president or a manager, and we just showed that G
can’t be a manager unless she’s the only one.
This is quite a bit of deducing to do up front; don’t get
the idea that you couldn’t have handled this game
without working all of this out up front. But if you’re
able to deduce this far, it saves you a tremendous
amount of time in the long run.
The Final Visualization: Here’s what we’re armed with
as we move on to the questions:
1/2/2 or 1/1/3
G President
G This is no good, because it leaves no one to be
G supervises 2 Manager
HKL
Technician
F F
The Big Picture:
• This section is a perfect example of why Kaplan
suggests taking time to do an overview of the
section before plunging in. This game is one of
the trickiest in the section. You would have been
better served if you left it towards the end, after
you’ve already racked up some points (and
confidence) with the other games.
• Critical reading is just as important in Logic
Games as it is in Logical Reasoning and Reading
Comp. If you just glazed over the opening
paragraph, you missed the heart of this game.
Remember: All rules are not indented.
• Always take number-related info as far as you
can, especially in grouping games where you’re
asked to distribute entities into various subgroups.
Sometimes they tell you how many go in each.
When they don’t, it’s up to you to at least attempt
to figure out the possibilities.
2
The Questions:
1. (B)
We love these acceptability questions. Just check each
rule against each choice. Rule 1 downs (D). Rule 3
cuts (A) and (E). Rule 4 (among others) takes care of
(C), which leaves us with our answer.
2. (A)
Here’s where they test our deduction. This we already
know: exactly 1 president (Rule 1), at least 1 manager
(Rule 2), so a maximum of 3 technicians.
3. (E)
We can cross off (A) and (B), thanks to our first
deduction that F is a technician. We also deduced that
if there are two managers, then the president must be
G. Since G can’t be one of two managers, we can cross
off (C) and (D), leaving (E). If you hadn’t made that
second deduction, no problem; you’re simply forced to
make it now: If G is one of two managers, then there
needs to be three technicians: Two for G to supervise
(Rule 5) and one for the other manager to supervise.
president.
4. (B)
To the choices:
(A) No way. From the beginning we’ve said that there
has to be at least two technicians.
(B) Yes. We also deduced at the start that this is indeed
possible (as long as G is our president). On test day,
mark (B) and go on, but to get some practice at
spotting wrong answer choices, we’ll continue.
(C) No; the only employee who isn’t supervised is the
president, and there’s only one president, so only one
employee will go unsupervised.
(D) No, we know that the only two possibilities are 1,
1, 3 and 1, 2, 2. There can’t be more managers than
technicians, thanks to Rule 3.
(E) Rule 2 said that at least one of the employees that
the president supervises is a manager. Rule 3 says
that every manager supervises at least one employee.
Since every employee is only supervised by one
employee, (E) is not possible.
 Section I: Logic Games

5. (D)
Start by working with the new information. F (a
technician) is supervised by the president, and we
know (Rule 2) that the president also supervises at
least one manager, so the president supervises at
least two employees. But since F is supervised by the
president, the manager whom the president is
supervising needs another technician to supervise
(Rule 3). So now we have one president, one manager,
and two technicians with only one more employee to
place. Learn to ask yourself the relevant questions.
Could it be a manager? No, all of the technicians are
already being supervised, which would not leave
anyone for a new manager to supervise. We therefore
must be dealing with the 1, 1, 3 setup, which gives us
our answer.
(A) No, G could indeed be that one manager supervising
two of the three technicians.
(B) No, G could be the president. H could either be the
one manager or even one of the technicians.
(C) No, L could be the president or the manager.
(E) No; as we’ve figured out, there are exactly three
technicians.

6. (C)
So now K as well as G both supervise two employees.
Since the maximum number of technicians (as we
deduced) is three, either K or G must be president
while the other is a manager (if they were both
managers, they’d need four technicians to supervise).
Where to now? Well, one of the two people supervised
by the president can be K or G (whoever isn’t the
president), but whoever isn’t president is going to need
two technicians to supervise. The president is also
going to need another employee to supervise. Can it be
a manager? No, because, just as in question 5, there
is only one employee left, and if that person was a
manager, there would be no one left for him or her to
super vise. So K and G must be president and
manager, in either order, and all of the other
employees, including L, must be super vised
technicians.
(A) only could be true. F could be supervised by either
G or K.
(B) only could be true. G could just as easily be president.
(D) is wrong. We deduced that there can be only one
manager (G or K).
(E) Actually, we figured out that there are (once again)
exactly three technicians.

3
PrepTest 14 Explained

Game 2: Washing Dishes 4) Another loophole closer, and again don’t give it a
second thought. No two objects are washed at the
Questions 7–12 same time (no “Octopus Ron” doing the dishes).

The Action: Here we have a sequencing game within a Key Deductions/Final Visualization: We can further
sequencing game. Three types of dishes, seven flesh out our work with Rules 2 and 3. Thanks to these
objects in all, are being washed: China (a mug and a two rules, there are only two possible options for the
plate), glassware (a water glass and a juice glass), and order of dishes washed:
utensils (a fork, a knife, and a spoon). Here in the
opening paragraph we get another important rule: The Option 1 1 2 3 4 567
objects within each type are washed consecutively. K = 5 or 6 M P (W) (J) K … S
This means, for example, that the fork (a utensil) will S = 6 or 7 (J) (W) (F)
not be washed in between the mug and plate (pieces F = 5, 6 or 7
of china). However, within each group, the order in or
which the objects are washed can var y, thus
accounting for the sequence within a sequence. There Option 2 1 23 4 5 6 7
are only two basic sequencing Key Issues in this one: K = 1 or 2 K … S (W) (J) M P
1) Which objects are washed in which order? S = 2 or 3 (F) (J) (W)
2) Which objects are washed before and after which F = 1, 2, or 3
other objects?
And that’s it. From this we can see many valuable facts
The Initial Setup: This begs for a simple setup. For now (M can only be washed first or sixth, etc.) These two
just separate the dishes into type and wait for the possibilities (our “Final Visualization,” really) is what
rules: we will come back to again and again to answer nearly
all of the questions. After making the abstract “C, G, U
China Glass Utensils or U, G, C” more concrete, we have an infinitely better
MP JW FKS grasp of what’s going on.

The Big Picture:

• Always attempt to make the abstract concrete.
The Rules: • Critical reading is just as important in Logic
Games as it is in Logical Reasoning and Reading
1) is your typical loophole closer. Don’t let it worry you. Comp. This section’s games all have important
All it means is that Ron won’t go back and rewash any concepts buried in the opening paragraphs.
of the dishes. Once is enough.
• Washing dishes is something we all can relate to
2) This rule has tricky wording, but once you comprehend (unfortunately), and therefore this was probably
it, it’s quite helpful. The glasses are washed after the easier to get a handle on than the first or third
china or after the utensils, but not after both. Again, games. This is yet another argument for quickly
make the information concrete. What are the looking at all of the games in a section before
possibilities? The “not after both” part eliminates C, U, deciding where to start. Take command of the
G and U, C, G, so the “type” order will either be C, G, LSAT; don’t let the testmakers dictate how you
U or U, G, C. In other words, the two glasses, W and J, proceed.
will always be washed in the middle of the three types.
3) deals with the internal order of the dish washing.
There are only two pieces in the china category, and we
now know that the mug is always washed before the
plate. Likewise we are told that of the utensils, the
knife is washed before the spoon. Note though, that
the fork can float around anywhere in relation to the
knife and spoon. Write “M…P” and “K≥S” as reminders.

4
 Section I: Logic Games

The Questions:

7. (E)
By scanning the two possibilities, it’s pretty easy to
see that the plate can only be washed second or
seventh, not third.
(A) through (D) all could be true.

8. (A)
Again, using what we know about the two possibilities,
the second option shows that the fork could be washed
first, in which case the knife would be washed second.
(B) through (E) are all impossible, as we see with our
ordering.

9. (B)
Simply check each choice against the possibilities:
Knife, fork, juice glass? For 2, 3, and 4? That’s way off.
The only order close (as we see with our two
possibilities) would be knife, fork, spoon in the 1, 2, 3
slots.
(A), (C), (D), and (E) are all very possible.

10. (C)
Again, use our two possibilities. The knife can’t be
washed third. First, second, fifth, sixth—(A), (B), (D),
(E)—yes, but not third.

11. (E)
Ask yourself, “what does this mean in the context of
this game?” The only way for this to be possible is if
the utensil order is knife, spoon, fork. Now test out the
options using this new restriction. (A) and (B) would
relate to the second option, but are both impossible
because they violate the K, S, F order. The plate can
never be washed third or sixth, in either option, so (C)
and (D) are out, but the plate can be washed seventh
if K, S, and F are washed first, second, and third,
respectively.

12. (A)
Ask yourself, “how can this be possible?” Only if the
order by type is C, G, U, our first option, and the knife
is washed fifth. The plate is washed second, and the
fork either sixth or seventh, so (A) is obviously false.
(B) and (E) could be true, and (C) and (D) must be
true.

5
PrepTest 14 Explained
Game 3: Birds on Display
Questions 13–18
The Action: This may have been the hardest game of
the bunch, simply due to the sheer number of entities
(10), and the number of details involved in the game’s
action. And once again, there’s lots of important
information found in the opening paragraph. At the
heart of it, this game is really another grouping game
of distribution: Ten birds—H, J, K, M, N, Q, R, S, T, and
W—will be placed into either an exhibition, cage 1, or
cage 2. Here’s where it gets more complex: Each bird
is one of three different types—goldfinch, lovebird, and
parakeet—and each is either male or female (no
surprise there, but it does add another element to keep
track of). Up to two pairs, consisting of a male and a
female of a single type (for example, parakeets S and
T), will be exhibited, and the rest will be placed into two
cages. The Key Issues are:
1) What birds can, must, or cannot be exhibited with
what other birds?
2) What birds can, must, or cannot be put into a cage
with what other birds?
The Initial Setup: The roster of birds is already
helpfully included right on the page. And like the game
on page 219 of Unit 4B in your lesson book, when
you’re given a diagram, use it. You could picture the
groups that we’ll put the birds in like this:
Cages Exhibition
1 Pair Definite
( ) Maybe 2
The Rules:
1) Each cage has a limit of four birds. “4 Max” should
suffice.
2) Birds of the same type and sex cannot be put in the
same cage. (For example, J and K, the two female
goldfinches, will have to be split up if neither of them
is exhibited.)
3) If either J or W is exhibited, then S can’t be. Don’t
neglect the contrapositive: If S is exhibited, then J and
W are not.
Key Deductions: Rule 2 is very helpful—it allows us to
deduce that at least one of the three male parakeets
must always be exhibited (with a female, of course). If
not, with three of them and only two cages, we’d
inevitably have to place two of them in the same cage.
6
So make a note that one of the exhibited pairs will
always be a pair of parakeets. We can make this even
more concrete by writing “T or W” for the female space
of one of the exhibited pairs. By extension, if J or W is
exhibited, then S can’t be, which means that Q or R
must be exhibited (if not, we wouldn’t have enough
cages to split up our three bad-tempered male
parakeets.) It should be obvious by now that emphasis
should be placed on the three male parakeets.
The Final Visualization: There’s still a lot left open, but
this will aid us in pursuing the answers:
If J or W —>No S
Cages Exhibition If S —>No J, No W
T or W 1 Pair Parakeets
( )
Same sex, kind —>Diff
Cages
The Big Picture:
• Whenever you’re given a sketch, use it. We
couldn’t have divided the birds into neater groups
if we tried.
• While there wasn’t really a true “process” game
in this section, this game has one particular
aspect characteristic of “process” games—the
sketch is less important, while returning to the
rules will probably come in handy in most of the
questions.
• Sometimes, a quick glance at the questions can
help you pick up on the action of a game. Here,
question 13 nicely lays out the grouping paradigm
in a visual way.
The Questions:
13. (D)
An acceptability question, so check each rule against
the choice: The opening paragraph (pairs of birds are
exhibited), as well as Rule 1, kills choice (E). Rule 2
axes choices (A) and (C). Rule 3 eliminates (B), and
just like that we’re left with (D).
14. (D)
We deduced that at least one of the male parakeets
must always be exhibited (thanks to our work mainly
with Rule 2), so only consider those choices that
include Q, R, or S which are (B), (D), and (E). (B) and
(E) both violate Rule 3, so only the pair in (D) is possible.
 Section I: Logic Games

15. (D)
And here they are again. Two of the three male
parakeets are caged, so the third, S, must be
exhibited. The contrapositive of Rule 3 tells us that J
and W can’t be exhibited and must be caged. That’s
quite a bit of good work, so stop and scan the choices.
There it is, choice (D).
(A), (B), and (C) could be true. (E), no way.

16. (D)
One of our three male parakeets, Q, is assigned to the
cages, which means that one of the remaining two, R
or S, must be exhibited. And since one of the only two
female parakeets is also caged, R or S must be
exhibited with the only remaining female, W. The mere
sight of W should lead you straight to Rule 3—W can’t
be exhibited with S, so the pair of parakeets that must
be exhibited is R and W.
(A), (B), (C) could be true. (E) is always possible.

17. (B)
Not much to do but try out the choices, keeping our
three male parakeets in mind, of course.
(A) The correct answer for acceptability question 13
allows us to axe this choice.
(B) Boy, do they know how to test a concept, or do they
know how to test a concept? You’ll probably here this
in your sleep by now: “One of the pairs of exhibited
birds must be parakeets.” This is our answer.
(C), (D), and (E) all have the required parakeet pair.
You can try them out if you care to. Do note that for (E)
to be possible, Rule 3 tells us that S can’t be in either
of the two pairs.

18. (E)
Rule 3 forces T to be the female parakeet exhibited
with S, and also forces W and J into cages. No help on
its own, but that uses up all of the female parakeets.
So the other two males, Q and R, have to go in
(separate) cages. Scan the choices—yup, R in a cage.
(A) through (D) only could be true only.

7
PrepTest 14 Explained
Game 4: Seasonal Sports
Questions 19–24
The Action: A straightforward matching game. We’re
asked to match up two kids, Nikki and Otto, with the
sport—hockey, kayaking, mountaineering, running, or
volleyball—that they play in each of the four seasons.
Predictably, the Key Issues deal with:
1) What sports can Nikki and Otto play in each season?
2) What sports can’t Nikki and Otto play in each season?
The Initial Setup: Either a grid or a list would work well
for this game. For our purposes, we’ll use a 2 X 4 grid
with Nikki and Otto on the side and the four seasons
(the real ones, not the singing group) on the top, like so:
F W SPR S F W SPR S
Nikki
Otto
The Rules:
There’s something concrete way down at the bottom,
so let’s start with that:
7) Otto plays volleyball in the summer. Great, build it
right into the grid.
1) Once a kid plays a sport, that sport is out for the
rest of the year. For example, since Otto plays
volleyball in the summer, volleyball is off limits for him
for the fall, spring, and winter.
2) The only sports that the kids can play in the fall are
mountaineering, running, and volleyball. Note again,
Otto plays volleyball in another season, so Rule 1
means that his fall sport is either mountaineering or
running. Indicate these things somewhere in the grid.
3) Only hockey and volleyball may be played in the
winter. Once again, since Otto plays volleyball in the
summer, he can’t play volleyball in the winter, so Otto’s
winter sport must be hockey. Put a huge “H” in Otto’s
winter column, and “H, V” in Nikki’s winter column.
4) We’re used to this by now. Put “K, M, R, V” over the
spring column. Note that volleyball is still out for Otto.
5) Otto’s summer sport is volleyball, so this rule really
applies only to Nikki: Put “K, M, V” in the summer
column for Nikki.
6) Here’s the rule that really opens up the entire game:
Nikki and Otto will not play the same sport in any
season. Since this will serve to greatly restrict the
possibilities, this rule is huge.
8
Key Deductions: Like good LSAT test-takers, we
considered the implications of Rule 1 with each
successive rule as we went along. Now let’s go back
and do the same with Rule 6. Otto plays hockey in the
winter (we deduced this by combining Rules 1, 3, and
7). Since Nikki therefore can’t play hockey in the winter,
Nikki must play volleyball in the winter (which, by the
way, turns question 19 into a nice ‘gimme’). Now that
volleyball is taken care of for both kids, cross of all the
“Vs” from the other seasons. You may also have
noticed that since Nikki doesn’t play hockey in the
winter (she plays volleyball), that means that Nikki
never plays hockey (which, by the way, turns question
20 into another welcome ‘gimme’).
The Final Visualization: Here’s our final sketch, which
contains a great deal of information:
Never H Nikki M/R V K/M/R K/M All Diff
Otto M/R H K/M/R V All Diff
Diff Diff Diff Diff
The Big Picture:
• Did you do this game first or second? If not, why
not? Did you at least get to this one? That’s why
previewing a section is so important. If you never
even had the chance to get to this game, you
missed many easy points. Take control. You are in
charge. You decide what to answer and what to
skip. You decide the order.
• Don’t be intimidated by a large number of rules.
It may look scary on the page, but actually, a
large number of rules normally makes for a much
more manageable game. It’s the games with
fewer rules that are ore difficult because they’re
much more ambiguous and abstract.
The Questions:
19. (B)
One of our bid deductions: Nikki plays volleyball in the
winter.
(A), (C), (D), and (E) all could be true only.
20. (A)
Our second gimme. We noticed before that indeed
hockey can’t be played by both kids. It’s only available
in the winter, when Nikki’s busy playing volleyball. (B)
through (E) are all sports that each kid could play.
 Section I: Logic Games

21. (C)
If Nikki’s fall sport is running, then running is out for
Otto in the fall (Rule 6). Volleyball is already out for him
(he plays it in the summer), so the only thing left for
Otto in the fall is mountaineering.
(A), (B), (D), and (E) all could be true, but we don’t
have the information to tell for sure.
(D) If Nikki’s spring sport is R, then her fall sport would
have to be M. Rule 6 then makes it impossible that
Otto’s fall sport is M.
(E) If Nikki’s summer sport is M, then her fall sport
has to be R. That would force Otto’s fall sport to be M
(Rule 6 again). Rule 1 makes it impossible for Otto’s
spring sport to also be M.

22. (B)
Not much to do except try out the choices.
(A) No way. We know (and see quite clearly in our grid)
that Nikki must play either M or R in the fall (V is out,
since she plays it in the winter).
(B) Sure, Nikki could play K in the spring, M in the
summer, and R in the fall, along with V in the winter.
This is possible, so it’s our answer.
(C) Same as (A). Since V is out for Nikki, she’s down
to K or M in the summer.
(D) Otto also has to play M or R in the fall because he
plays V in the summer.
(E) These are exactly Otto’s options for the spring: V’s
exclusion means that Otto’s only spring choices are K,
M, or R.

23. (B)
Since Otto was down to M or R in the fall, this means
it must be M. Rule 6 therefore forces Nikki’s fall sport
to be R, cross off (A). Rule 1 eliminates R from Nikki’s
choices for the rest of the year, and there’s our answer.
She can’t run in the spring.
It turns out that every sport can be determined in this
one; (C), (D), and (E) all must be true.

24. (C)
Again, not much to do but try out each choice.
Remember that the Rule 1 makes it necessary to make
sure that the entire year works out. So we’ll just plug
in the info and see if we can come up with a year that
works for both kids.
(A) If M is Nikki’s fall sport, then R would have to be
Otto’s fall sport. It couldn’t be his spring sport, too.
(B) If Nikki’s spring sport is R and her summer sport
is M, she’s out of possibilities for the fall (we deduced
way back, that M and R were her only fall options).
(C) No problem. Here’s what we get: fall: Nikki—R,
Otto—M; winter: Nikki—V, Otto—H; spring: Nikki—M,
Otto—R or K; summer: Nikki—K, Otto—V.

9
PrepTest 14 Explained
SECTION II:
LOGICAL REASONING
1. (C)
The paradox is: How is it possible for the city’s water
shortage to get worse, even as the city receives
unusually heavy rainfall? (C) gives the answer: People
were simply using more water throughout the month of
June, which presumably counterbalanced the effect of
added rain. So people saw the rain falling, threw
conservation to the winds, and used so much water
that the city suffered a net water loss, despite June’s
heavy rainfall.
(A) is irrelevant; it does nothing to explain how the
water shortage managed to get worse during the month
of June.
(B) Au contraire. By showing people using less water in
June, (B) makes the deepening water crisis harder to
understand.
(D) has nothing to say about the particular period we’re
interested in (the month of June), and moreover it gives
a reason for the shortage to be not so severe.
(E) is a flat-out au contraire choice; if per-capita use of
water declined in June, we’d expect the water shortage
to become less severe.
2. (C)
There are only two ways an applicant can qualify: either
have an earned doctorate and a record of published
research or have five years’ work experience. The only
fields that count toward either qualification are
sociology, psychology, and education. We’re looking for
someone who fails to meet either qualification, and
that’s Edward St. John, (C). He’s done the work, and
earned the doctorate and published a lot, but his work
and doctorate were in the field of business, and his
publications were novels, not research. Sorry, Mr. St.
John, no job for you.
(A) Joanne Berstein has the work experience—eleven
years at the department of education. No need to read
the rest of her “resume.”
(B) Alvin Johnson also has the work experience—
seven years in the field of psychology.
(D) Michael Roberts’ “resume” is a little harder to follow,
but his two years teaching education classes and his
four years work on an education task force add up to
six years work in the field of education, so he’s OK.
(E) Alicia Arias gets by on her academic record; she
holds an earned doctorate in sociology and she’s
published plenty of sociological research.
10
3. (B)
Normally deer mice don’t have a clue when it comes to
getting back to their nests. What’s different about this
case? The only clue you get is that the researchers
camped near the deer mouse’s nest for a time, and
that the mouse found its way back to the nest near the
researchers’ camp. This suggests that presence of the
camp may have helped the mouse find its way home.
(B) explains how this could happen; the mouse could
have followed the smell or trail of the smoke back to
the location of the camp, and then found its nest.
(A), (C), and (E) all side-step the issue by simply
describing the new area to which the mouse had been
moved. (A) tells us the terrain is rocky; (C) that there
are few other deer mice in the area; (E) that there are
many prey animals in the area. But nothing in any of
these features relates to the ability of the mouse to
find its way home. We’re only interested in how this
mouse succeeded where so many others have failed—
describing the new environment doesn’t explain that.
(D)’s description of the manner in which the mouse
was moved also isn’t helpful. In fact, its being kept in
a dark box removes one possible (admittedly
farfetched) explanation for how it found its way home—
that it looked out the window and retraced its steps.
4. (E)
Simple argument here: Arts groups survived an 8
percent cut in public funding last year, so they can
survive another 8 percent cut in public funding this
year. This should have struck you as fishy; just
because the groups managed to survive one funding
cut doesn’t mean they can sur vive further cuts
indefinitely. (You’ve certainly heard of the straw that
breaks the camel’s back.) That’s exactly the flaw that
(E) points out: The “cumulative” effects of the cuts
might reduce the arts groups’ funding so much that
they can no longer survive.
(A) The argument never ties the survival of the arts
groups to an improvement in the economy; in fact, the
author says that the arts groups managed to raise
enough private money last year despite a recessionary
economy, which suggests that a good economy isn’t
necessary for the groups’ survival.
(B) is a “beyond the scope” choice. The argument is
trying to establish the factual conclusion that arts
groups will survive another funding cut; in order to
establish that conclusion, the argument needn’t
address the issue of whether there should be public
funding of the arts.

(C) Again, outside the scope—the argument never brings
in the concept of “flourishing,” or equates it with
survival.
(D) The possibility raised by (D) actually seems to
strengthen the argument by minimizing the effect of this
year’s cuts. In fact, however, the actual dollar amount
of any particular year’s cut isn’t the point; as (E) says,
the real flaw is that the argument fails to see that many
small cuts can have a large cumulative effect.
5. (D)
Seems like another paradox: The number of books sold
has increased, but the time spent reading by the
average literate person has decreased. Anything that
helps resolve this discrepancy must somehow affect
one of these factors. The best approach here is to
eliminate the choices that seem to resolve the
seeming discrepancy; the choice that remains will be
the answer. (D) fails to resolve anything—how does the
fact that people used to display large book collections
explain why more books are sold now, or why literate
people spend less time reading now? If anything, (D)
would lead us to expect more books to be sold fifty
years ago, to people trying to build up impressive
libraries.
(A) explains how the total number of books sold could
have risen even though the average literate person
spends less time reading; there are simply many more
literate people around now, so even if they spend less
time reading on average, they could certainly buy more
books in total.
(B) attacks the idea of “number of books sold.” It gives
a valid explanation for why more books are sold now—
fifty years ago, readers were less likely to buy their
books because they borrowed them from the library
instead.
(C) gives us a group that might be spending the same
or even less time reading as it did in the past, yet
would be buying many more books than in the past.
(E) attacks the idea of “time spent reading.” If books
are shorter and easier to read than they used to be,
then it’s quite possible that literate people spend less
time reading on average, even if they buy more books.
6. (D)
A new record—two mice questions on one page. The
naturalists deny that mice depend on humans for
survival and predict that mice could survive even if the
environment became too harsh to support human life.
Their reasons are that mice reproduce rapidly, and
that, “more important to their survival,” they can adapt
to all sorts of habitats. (D) supports their prediction by
Section II: Logical Reasoning
confirming the most important survival attribute of
mice, their ability to survive in environments too harsh
to support humans. According to (D), mice have
already demonstrated they can survive where human
beings cannot—in Antarctica.
(A) Irrelevant: This describes something that can limit
the mouse population (lack of food), which gives us no
reason to think mice can survive without humans
(especially since mice probably get a lot of food from
humans).
(B) So what? The reproductive ability of mice is less
important to their survival than their ability to adapt to
different environments, and we get nothing about that
here.
(C) ignores the claim that the ability of mice to survive
in nature has diminished because of contact with
humans; we want something that indicates that mice
can still make it on their own, not that they once could.
(E) Au-contraire; if anything, (E) implies that most mice
live in man-made environments, which certainly doesn’t
show they don’t need humans to survive.
7. (D)
All zebras have stripes so stripes must have some use.
But they can’t work as protective camouflage for zebras
that live in grasslands, says the author, so they must
serve some other function. The author decides that
stripes must somehow serve as signals to other
zebras. (D) supports this with evidence that zebras
respond in a special way to striped shapes: They react
more quickly when they see striped shapes moving.
(Possibly, this helps zebras move together and function
as a herd.) At any rate, (D) supports the author’s belief
that stripes serve as signals to other zebras by
demonstrating a specific reaction that zebras have to
stripes.
(A) gives further evidence that stripes are good for
zebras, but doesn’t support the author’s contention
that stripes function by signaling other zebras in some
way.
(B) suggests that stripes may serve as camouflage in
grasslands, which undermines the author’s contention
that stripes must have some function besides
camouflage.
(C) discusses a different kind of visual signal among
animals of the same species—color changes—but that
doesn’t help establish that zebra stripes work as such
an intraspecies signal.
(E) is irrelevant; zebras’ ability to whinny and snort to
each other proves nothing about the functioning of their
stripes.
11
PrepTest 14 Explained
8. (B)
The author charges that the editorial writer’s attitude
towards government restrictions on academic freedom
is inconsistent. The editorial writer first excuses U.S.
restrictions on academic freedom, saying that
scientists who receive public funding can’t detach
themselves from politics, then turns around and
condemns the Soviet government for saying what
seems to be the same thing, that scientists can’t
detach themselves from politics. The author complains
that the editorialist hasn’t explained the difference
between the two cases, so as things stand, it seems
that the editorialist is treating the same thing in two
different ways. That’s inconsistency.
(A) The author doesn’t question the editorialist’s
facts, but rather is critical of the way the editorialist
both accepts and rejects the same principle.
(C) The author doesn’t come up with an exception to a
general claim; instead, she complains that the
editorialist accepts a general claim (scientists can’t
detach themselves from politics) in one case and
rejects it in another.
(D) The author doesn’t refute the editorial’s basic
assumption, but complains that the basic assumption
(or principle) behind the editorial seems to change.
(E) The author doesn’t deny the editorial’s conclusion
(the author doesn’t conclude that U.S. policy is
unjustified, or that Soviet policy is justified), but points
out that the conclusion hasn’t been persuasively
argued.
9. (C)
They give us a big verbal clue in this one; “hence” tells
us that the claim that doctoral dissertations shouldn’t
be required is a conclusion, although at first we can’t
be sure that it’s the argument’s main conclusion.
When you look further, you see that the rest of the
passage is indeed intended to establish this main
conclusion; the argument says what doctoral programs
should do, gives a number of reasons that the
requirement of a dissertation frustrates these proper
goals, and concludes that doctoral disser tations
shouldn’t be required in the humanities. As (C) says,
this is the claim that the whole argument is intended to
establish.
(A) No further conclusion is based on the claim about
doctoral dissertations; instead, the other statements
provide support for that claim.
12
(B) is all wet; the claim isn’t an example, but is itself
a general principle, and it doesn’t concern the goals of
Ph.D. programs—that’s discussed in the first sentence.
(D) First, the claim doesn’t “provide evidence;” it’s a
conclusion based on evidence already provided.
Second, the argument never differentiates between
humanities and other disciplines.
(E) gets the flow of the argument reversed; the
obser vation that the disser tation requirement is
counterproductive is meant to support the claim that
dissertations shouldn’t be required.
10. (B)
Penglai merchants protest the plan to reduce outdoor
advertising on the grounds that it would reduce the
overall volume of business on the island. They reason
that a report has shown that Panglian businesses that
advertise do better than those that do not. But this
evidence only shows that advertising gives businesses
a competitive edge, not that advertising increases the
total amount of business done on Penglai. As (B) says,
the merchants assume that advertising hasn’t simply
diver ted customers from businesses that don’t
advertise to businesses that do advertise. If you deny
this assumption and say that advertising simply
redistributes customers, then the claim that cutting
advertising will hurt overall business falls apart.
(A) The merchants don’t assume that there are no good
reasons to restrict advertising, only that restrictions
would also have negative results.
(C) The merchants needn’t examine the objectivity of
the government’s report, since their claim is that the
report argues against the government’s course of
action. If the report were unobjective, we would expect
it to be slanted in favor of the government position.
(D) is tricky; since the government doesn’t want to
eliminate advertising, but only reduce its size, you may
think that the merchants’ argument should make some
reference to the importance of advertising size.
However, (D) is too strongly worded; there’s no reason
the merchants should have to establish a “precise”
proportion between market-share sizes and amount of
advertising.
(E) The question of constitutionality is irrelevant to the
merchants’ argument, which is based not on law, but
on the restrictions’ effects on business.

11. (D)
When tenants of rent-control units have political power,
and can make or break rent-control laws, they’re
always motivated by desire for shor t-term gain.
According to the author, short-term gain (smaller rent
increases) comes from applying rent control. So when
tenants of rent-control units have the power to enact
rent control, they will also desire to do so. That means
they will enact it. What’s the result? According to the
stimulus, the long-term result will be a “shortage of
rental units.” Finally, we know that in “many
municipalities” tenants of rent control units do have
this political power. That leads at last to (D); in many
municipalities, there will eventually be a shortage of
rental units (owing to the rent-control laws perpetuated
by those politically powerful tenants).
(A) A distortion, signaled by the word “impossible.”
Rent-control ordinances are described as “placing
limits” on rent increases, not making them impossible.
(B) The stimulus never hints at the conditions under
which rent-control ordinances are likely to be repealed.
(C) Au-contraire; the author specifically says that rent
control has “several negative effects for renters.”
(E) The stimulus provides no evidence about the results
of a shortage of rental units, in the long term or short
term.
12. (A)
The author concludes that when a language has fewer
words for colors than does English, speakers of that
language must be “perceptually unable” to distinguish
as many colors as can English speakers. So the author
believes there’s not just a linguistic difference, but
there’s an actual difference in perception. (A)
undermines this conclusion by severing the connection
between words and perceptions. Russian has two
different words for two shades of blue; English has only
one word for both shades, yet English speakers are
able to distinguish between them. This suggests that
the lack of a word to describe a color doesn’t imply lack
of ability to perceive that color.
(B) points to a basic similarity in languages, which
doesn’t help us decide whether or not differences
between languages point to differences in perception.
(C) describes how Khmer applies words for colors
differently from English speakers, but tells us nothing
about how the Khmerians perceive the colors in
question. Therefore, it doesn’t affect the link between
language and perception.
Section II: Logical Reasoning
(D) is useless; it points out one similarity between
Spanish and English, and tells us nothing about how
language differences relate to perceptions.
(E) doesn’t tell us whether people who speak
languages that have no word for gray can perceive gray,
so it doesn’t affect the author’s conclusion. Notice the
scope shift: The fact that a color commonly occurs in
nature doesn’t indicate the relative perception of that
color among users of various languages.
13. (B)
We’re asked for a choice that plugs the gap in the
argument; that is, a choice that makes the connection
between vocabulary and perception. That’s (B): If each
language has a word for every sensory perception that
its speakers experience, then the lack of a word for a
sensory quality indicates the lack of a perception. If a
language lacks a word for a color, that means its
speakers can’t distinguish that color.
(A) has nothing to do with colors, which is what the
conclusion focuses on. The fact that most languages
have words for the most basic family relationships
does nothing to establish a link between words for
colors and the perceptions of colors.
(C) observes that different languages make different
“categor y distinctions” (i.e. distinctions between
colors, relationships, etc.) without establishing that
those differences reflect differences in the ability to
perceive the distinctions.
(D) says that the existence of words for cer tain
categories reflects the importance of the categories for
the speakers, but not that the existence of those words
reflects speakers’ ability to perceive the categories.
(E) gives the example of languages that don’t have
words for colors that aren’t encountered by their
speaker, but fails to show that the speakers of those
languages are unable to perceive those colors.
14. (C)
Cynthia presents a scenario where two individuals
believe they are morally obligated to take mutually
contradictory courses of action. According to Zachary,
both individuals have the right and duty to pursue
their “morally obligatory” courses of action without
interference. The artist has the right and duty to
prevent the demonstrator from destroying the
pornographic art; the demonstrator has the right and
duty to destroy the art. At the same time, the artist has
no right to interfere with the demonstrator and vice-
versa. Zachary’s principle leads to a contradiction, and
as (C) says, it’s untenable on its own terms.
13
PrepTest 14 Explained
(A) Cynthia doesn’t attack Zachary’s concept of moral
obligation, but instead attacks his account of the rights
and duties that moral obligations impose.
(B) No; Cynthia attacks a logical contradiction inherent
in Zachary’s notion of the rights and duties imposed by
moral obligations.
(D) The problem isn’t that the term “moral obligation”
is understood differently by different people, but that
it’s possible for different people to feel opposite moral
obligations.
(E) The problem isn’t that Zachary’s understanding of
moral obligation can’t be applied to artists, but that it
becomes contradictory when it’s applied to people with
opposed obligations.
15. (E)
Cynthia presents a case where two people felt moral
obligations that brought them into direct conflict, and
we’re looking for a choice that also presents an
impossible situation, and that’s (E). The health
inspector must force the householder to get rid of
some of her cats; the householder must keep all the
cats she has, and collect more if possible. It’s
impossible for both to fulfill their moral obligations.
(A) Only one of the two people here actually feels a
moral obligation, so we can cross this choice off on
those grounds alone.
(B) The moral obligations here are in harmony with
each other; no good.
(C) Scope shift: This deals with opposing beliefs about
a third party’s moral obligations; it doesn’t force the
two bankers into inevitable conflict over their own
moral obligations in the same way as the characters in
Cynthia’s argument.
(D)’s problem is that we can’t be sure that the moral
obligations are mutually contradictory; it may be
possible to maximize shareholder profits while
designing an energy-efficient building. (D) is missing
the element of impossibility.
16. (D)
The author says that the county airport was unable to
pay its operating expenses, and blames the fact that it
didn’t get as much money as it had expected from user
fees. But the airport was attempting to cover its
expenses only partly by charging user fees, which
implies that money would be coming from some other
source or sources as well. Therefore, if the airport
couldn’t pay its expenses, it must also be true that it
14
didn’t make enough money from these other source to
offset the paltriness of the revenue from user fees.
(A) is way out in left field; we have no grounds for
deducing how far most citizens live from other airports
(we don’t even know there are any other airports in the
county).
(B) goes outside the scope of the stimulus by
discussing the will of private aircraft owners; all we
know is that they haven’t paid as much in user fees as
expected, but we have no idea why they haven’t.
(C) involves a major scope shift: The stimulus discusses
the airport’s operating expenses, but tells us nothing
about the airport’s construction expenses.
(E) Another left-field choice; we’ve no evidence for
concluding what will happen in the future.
17. (C)
The consumer activist complains that deregulating
major airlines has worked to the disadvantage of
everyone who doesn’t have easy access to a major
airport. The industry representative counters that, on
the contrary, thanks to regional airlines, there are now
more regular flights out of most small airports than
there used to be. Do you see the problem, in the form
of the scope shift? The activist is talking about
“disadvantage” and the representative is talking about
“number of flights.” We need something to connect
those ideas, and we find it in (C).
(A) is too strong. The representative doesn’t have to
make such an absolute claim in order to rebut the
activist’s claim that everyone without access to a
major airport has suffered.
(B) sounds like the evidence from the consumer
activist’s argument (or at least something that’s
implied by this evidence), but is not crucial to the
validity of the industry representative’s point.
(D) The representative refutes the activist’s claim of
“disadvantage” by pointing out the increased number
of flights. “Cost” is outside the scope, and so certainly
isn’t relied upon in the representative’s argument.
(E) is too general; the representative needn’t assume
that an increase in competitors is always a long-term
advantage. Moreover, it’s not even clear that there has
been any increase in the total number of airlines.
18. (D)
The consumer activist claims that deregulation worked
to the disadvantage of everyone without access to a
major airpor t. Why? Because the removal of
government regulations allowed major airlines to

abandon unprofitable routes “as they promptly did.”
That means, as (D) points out, that the regulations had
been to some degree responsible for the fact that the
airlines were maintaining their less profitable routes.
Use the denial test; if the regulations weren’t partly
responsible, then their removal wouldn’t have caused
a wholesale abandonment of the unprofitable routes.
(A) The activist claims that deregulation created new
disadvantages for those without access to major
airports, but needn’t assume that before deregulation
there were no disadvantages for those without such
access.
(B) The activist needn’t assume anything about what
should be done, since he never addresses that
concern in his argument; moreover (B)’s claim about
“any sizable group of consumers” is clearly too general
in scope.
(C) is also too general; the activist says that in this
case deregulation created disadvantages, but needn’t
assume that regulation “almost always” is advantageous.
(E) The activist’s argument never mentioned “regional
airlines” so you can be pretty sure he’s not assuming
anything about them. Moreover, the argument doesn’t
discuss “quality of service” but concentrates on access
to service.
19. (E)
The author takes issue with the report’s conclusion
that nitrogen deposited by air pollution is good for
North America’s eastern forests. He points out that
European scientists have found that when too much
nitrogen is deposited, trees begin to die. He says that
this probably applies to North America’s eastern
forests also, which are already suffering from excess
nitrogen. The point is stated in (E): The report’s
conclusion is wrong, and the nitrogen in air pollution,
far from benefiting trees in North America’s eastern
forests, will probably cause them to die.
(A) The author disagrees with the report’s conclusion,
so his “main point” can hardly be simply to state that
conclusion.
(B) The author never says anything to suggest that the
capacity of forests to absorb nitrogen increases as the
forest becomes nitrate-saturated—quite the opposite!
(C) Au-contraire—the author states that “this finding is
likely to apply to forests everywhere.”
(D) makes a false comparison not based on the
argument; the author never contrasts eastern North
American forests to other North American forests.
Section II: Logical Reasoning
20. (B)
The spokesperson concludes that, despite the
reduction in subsidy, the railroad’s ser vice has
remained satisfactor y. What’s the evidence? The
number of passengers has increased. The conclusion
and the evidence use different terms: “service” and
“number of passengers.” The assumption must
connect those terms; it must show that the number of
passengers reflects the quality of service. (B) does the
job: the spokesperson is assuming that unsatisfactory
service would cause some people to refuse to travel by
train. Otherwise, no matter how bad the service was,
the number of passengers would be unaffected.
(A) Taxpayer wishes play no part in the argument.
(C) Another scope shift: The spokesperson merely
concludes that the service has remained satisfactory;
she needn’t assume the much stronger statement that
the service improved.
(D) The spokesperson said that it’s difficult to maintain
quality of service when there’s subsidy reduction, not
that it’s impossible. Even so, notwithstanding that
difference in degree, this is still just a restatement of
the author’s evidence.
(E) goes outside the scope by venturing into the future,
which the spokesperson never discusses; moreover,
the spokesperson’s argument needn’t assume anything
about revenue produced by the passengers.
21. (A)
The author concludes that the risks of the elective
surgeries performed before the five-week period were
unnecessary. To weaken this conclusion, we’ll need to
find a choice that makes elective surgery seem more
necessary, and (A) does just that. If elective surgery
prevents a condition from worsening into a life-
threatening, thus necessitating even riskier surgery,
then the conclusion that the elective surgery was
performed unnecessarily is weakened significantly.
(B) Whether or not the patients of the elective surgery
were informed of the risks does nothing to weaken the
conclusion that the risks of performing elective surgery
were unnecessary. It’s an irrelevant consideration.
(C) Irrelevant comparison: The rate of surgery in this
area as opposed to “elsewhere” has no bearing on the
argument’s validity.
(D) The conclusion is that the risk of elective surgeries
were incurred unnecessarily. A statement that shows
that such surgeries are generally less risky overall than
emergency surgeries doesn’t show that the risks were
necessary. If anything, it leans in the other direction.
15
PrepTest 14 Explained
Moreover, the reason why elective surgery is generally
less risky than emergency surgery, choice (D), doesn’t
get at the issue of the need for the elective surgeries;
it’s another irrelevant side issue.
(E) The reason that some patients die (infection) doesn’t
weaken the conclusion. This choice doesn’t even specify
which type of surgery we’re talking about, so it’s too
vague to weaken the argument.
22. (D)
Evidence: A painting that is similar to van Gogh’s work
in several ways, but is not in any catalog of his work.
Conclusion: On the sole basis of these similarities, it is
“virtually certain” that this is a new, never-before
catalogued van Gogh. The flaw should seem fairly
obvious; the owner doesn’t consider other possible
explanations, such as the most obvious: Another artist
could paint just like van Gogh. In typical wordy LSAT
style, that’s essentially what we get in (D).
(A) The author doesn’t seek “general agreement.” If
she did, maybe someone would point out the error of
her ways.
(B) The author has no logical obligation to substantiate
her evidence regarding the subject matter with an
expert authority. We have to find how the path between
evidence and conclusion (i.e., the reasoning) is flawed,
not ways in which the author failed to prove his or her
evidence.
(C) This choice mistakenly plays off the last few
words. That fact that the author believes that the
painting is “a bargain at its price” does not by itself
imply that the owner is assuming that the only reason
to buy art is to make a profit.
(E) No; there’s no indication of self-interest at work here.
23. (E)
This passage discusses government-subsidized insurance
which makes it feasible for people to buy houses in
hurricane zones by allowing them to recoup a high
percentage of losses in the event of a major storm. In
light of this, the government bill that shouldn’t be
supported is found in choice (E): Why would anyone
pay for government-subsidized insurance if there
existed a contingency fund that protects the owners of
uninsured houses? An argument against the proposal
in (E) is that its redundant with the existing insurance
structure and would result in a loss of government
revenue.
16
(A), (B), and (C) all deal with ways to improve hurricane-
stricken areas. Nothing in the passage allows us to
argue against any of these. These may or may not be
good proposals, but we have no way of telling from the
information in the passage. Therefore, the passage
doesn’t support an argument against these proposals.
(D) First of all, “coastal lands” is way too broad for the
scope of this stimulus. Secondly, (D) doesn’t go
against the thrust of the passage in any way, so there
are no grounds for an argument against this proposal.
24. (D)
The conclusion here is that prohibition actually had the
opposite of its intended effect: Since the death rate
went up during this period, prohibition made people
use more alcohol than they would have without the
ban. To weaken the argument, look for something that
provides an alternative explanation for the increase in
the death rate. If something else was responsible for
the death rate increase, then the conclusion that
prohibition led to more drinking (an attempt to explain
the mortality statistics) would be weakened. (D) is the
only choice that doesn’t weaken the argument. How
the alcohol that contributed to the alcohol-related
deaths between 1951 and 1963 is produced, and the
fact that it’s imported, are irrelevant to the claim that
prohibition fosters more drinking.
All of the wrong choices sever the connection between
the evidence (fatalities) and the conclusion (prohibition
makes people want to drink more). They do this by
providing alternative explanations for the fatalities:
(A) shows that the fatalities recorded during the five
year period could have been the result of alcohol abuse
before prohibition went into effect.
(B) brings up the possibility that the fatalities may not
even be alcohol-related.
(C) If the increase in the death rate during the stated
period is simply part of a larger trend, then the ban on
alcohol may have nothing to do with people’s desire to
drink.
(E) If this is true, then the death rate may have gone
up due to a decline in life-saving medical attention for
alcohol users, rather than an increase in drinking.
25. (E)
The editor concludes that the odds are overwhelming
(19 to 1) that the letter was written by a man. Why does
the editor think so? Because fewer than 5% of the
professors at such schools are women. If the editor
had no other information, this might seem to be a
 Section II: Logical Reasoning

logical conclusion. However, there is another piece of

info that certainly may sway the odds—the doctor’s
name is Shirley!! Taking this into account, the editor’s
reasoning seems flawed; it’s much more likely that the
letter was written by a woman (it’s not 100%, because
theoretically, there could be a man named Shirley,
although it’s not very likely). This flawed reasoning is
mirrored in (E). Since 19 out of 20 animals are
mammals, and fewer than 1 out of 20 are birds, it is
concluded that the odds are overwhelming (95%) that
the animal Emily saw is a mammal. This totally
disregards the fact that the animal was flying, which
sways the prediction heavily in the other direction,
much like the name “Shirley” did in the original.
(A) interprets statistics a little too strictly, but doesn’t
have the element we’re looking for; a factor that sways
the normal odds associated with a prediction.
(B) deals with not having the numbers of the evidence
(15 with 1 in 20 evidence) which is not parallel with the
stimulus.
(C) The hypothetical “if he had graduated,” along with
“a likely result” throw this choice off track.
(D) contains an out and out statistical flaw, but this flaw
doesn’t mirror the one perpetrated by the editor. In the
stimulus and correct answer (E), probabilities are used
to predict the nature of one specific thing, whereas in
(D), the stats are used (erroneously) to formulate a
conclusion about an entire group.

17
PrepTest 14 Explained
SECTION III:
READING COMPREHENSION
Passage 1: Earth’s Magnetic Field
Questions 1–6
Topic and Scope: Earth’s magnetic field; specifically,
reversals in the magnetic field’s polarity.
Purpose and Main Idea: The author’s purpose is to
discuss the process that results in reversals of the
magnetic field’s polarity, as well as two distinct
hypotheses that try to explain these reversals; since
this text is essentially descriptive, there really isn’t a
specific main idea, though the author does say (in the
last paragraph) that the “heat-transfer hypothesis”
offers a better explanation than the “asteroid-impact
hypothesis.”
Paragraph Structure: Paragraph 1 introduces the topic
and scope of the passage. The rest of this paragraph
and all of paragraph 2 provide a lot of scientific
factology about the Earth’s magnetic field, particularly
facts about what is known (not much) about the
process of polarity reversal.
Paragraph 3 outlines both the “heat-transfer hypothesis”
and the “asteroid-impact hypothesis” of polarity
reversal. In paragraph 4, on the other hand, the author
asserts that the “heat-transfer hypothesis” is a more
compelling explanation of polarity reversal.
The Big Picture:
• A good grasp of the passage doesn’t mean
assimilating all of the details (they can be looked
up should this become necessary). Rather, it
means comprehending what the author’s doing in
the text—in this case, describing a scientific
process and two hypotheses that purport to
explain it.
• Although this isn’t a ver y difficult science
passage, it’s still not a good place to begin work
on the section. Why? Because the author’s
purpose isn’t entirely clear until late in the
passage. Passages that begin with a mass of
facts—instead of a clear statement of authorial
intent—are generally best left for later in the
section. Moreover, a brief scan of the question
set suggests that it’s not going to be an
especially easy one.
18
• Note, however, that this passage conforms to a
structure that’s common in science passages: a
scientific process is described and competing
explanations of it are then evaluated.
The Questions:
1. (C)
This choice is a nice paraphrase of lines 16–21, which
state that the Earth’s magnetic field is generated by
the movement of free electrons in the hot metallic fluid
that constitutes the Earth’s outer core.
(A) distorts the “asteroid-impact hypothesis.” According
to this hypothesis, “heat circulation in the outer core”
is affected by changes in the polar ice caps, not the
other way around.
(B) combines elements of both the “heat-transfer
hypothesis” and the “asteroid-impact hypothesis” into
a statement that has no support in the text.
(D) is par t of the “asteroid-impact hypothesis”—a
hypothesis that may or may not turn out to be correct.
(E) also distorts information in the text, which says
that reversals in magnetic field polarity may be related
to changes in “the heat circulation pattern of the outer
core fluid…” (lines 27–28).
2. (E)
In lines 59–63, the author’s objection to the “asteroid-
impact hypothesis” is that it depends on an
“extraterrestrial intervention,” which he finds less
compelling than explanations that rest on terrestrial (or
earthly) events. Of the choices, only (E) presents an
extraterrestrial explanation—cometary impact—for the
extinction of the dinosaurs.
Choices (A)–(D) each present an “earthly” reason for
the disappearance of the dinosaurs—the type of
reason that the author favors when it comes to
explaining earthly events, whether magnetic field
reversals or species extinction.
3. (A)
The author mentions hotter and cooler blobs in the
context of describing the “heat-transfer hypothesis.”
This hypothesis suggests that heat circulation patterns
in the outer core are affected by the way in which heat
is vented from the outer core.
(B) distorts information in the text, which makes it clear
that magnetic field reversal is thought to be caused by
a disturbance in heat circulation patterns in the outer
core (lines 26–28).
 Section III: Reading Comprehension

(C) is too vague. The author mentions the blobs only in
the context of laying out a specific hypothesis about
magnetic field reversal. (C) is also beyond the passage’s
scope: the text dwells on the Earth’s interior, not its
exterior.
(D) focuses on the substance of the detail, rather than
why the author included it in the text.
(E) also distorts information in the text. According to
lines 16–18, it is an accepted fact that the magnetic
field itself is produced by the movement of free
electrons in the outer core’s fluid.
4. (B)
Lines 8–9 say that geological evidence demonstrates
that magnetic field reversals have been occurring with
greater frequency in the recent past.
(A) Lines 1–3 state that “[i]t is a fundamental tenet of
geophysics that the Earth’s magnetic field can exist in
either of two polarity states…” A fundamental tenet is
something that is agreed upon by everyone in the
discipline. Besides, there’s no sense in the text that
any geophysicists contest this fact.
(C) is beyond the scope of the text. This passage is
about the “underlying causes” (lines 14–15) of
magnetic field reversals, not about how fast they occur.
The only point made about the speed of these
reversals is that they occur over a period of thousands
of years.
(D) The “heat-transfer hypothesis” is simply one possible
explanation that geophysicists have come up with to
account for a process that they don’t fully understand.
To say that it has enhanced their knowledge of
magnetic field reversal is an overstatement.
(E) Magnetic field reversal is thought to result from
changes in heat circulation patterns in the outer core,
not from friction along the boundary of inner and outer
cores.
(B) These two hypotheses were formulated to address
the “underlying causes” of magnetic field reversal.
That they might also address the issue of reversal
frequency is simply a by-product of their primary
function.
(C) is a “half-right, half-wrong” choice. True, no firm
conclusions about either hypothesis have yet been
reached; but there’s no information about the extent to
which the two have been explored.
(E) is beyond the scope of the text. We aren’t told
precisely when either hypothesis was formulated.
Moreover, both hypotheses have at least some support
among geophysicists.
6. (D)
Changes in oceanic circulation patterns aren’t
mentioned anywhere in the text as possible
contributors to magnetic field reversals. The “asteroid-
impact hypothesis” does speak of temperature drops
in and redistribution of seawater, but these events are
different from changes in oceanic circulation patterns.
(A) Geophysicists think that change in heat circulation
in outer core fluid is the basic cause of magnetic field
reversals. They part company, however, over what
causes the change in heat circulation.
(B) and (E) are components of the “asteroid-impact
hypothesis.”
(C) is part of the “heat-transfer hypothesis.”

5. (D)
Although this passage discusses just two hypotheses
about magnetic field reversal, we’re told that others
exist. The last sentence of the text explicitly refers to
“theories that depend on extraterrestrial intervention”
and “theories like the first” (i.e., “earthly” theories).
(A) is beyond the scope of the text. We’re not told what
geophysicists in general think about these hypotheses,
let alone whether “they have sharply divided the
scientific community.” All we can infer from the text is
that there is some support for both hypotheses.

19
PrepTest 14 Explained
Passage 2: Deconstruction
Questions 7–13
Topic and Scope: the literar y philosophy of
deconstruction; specifically, the connection between
its terminology and its methods.
Purpose and Main Idea: The author’s purpose is to
demonstrate that links exist between deconstruction’s
terminology and its methods; the author argues that
deconstructionist terminology provides clear insights
into deconstruction’s methods.
Paragraph Structure: Paragraphs 1 and 2 essentially
point out that deconstructionist terminology reflects
the philosophy’s methods. The words—along with their
prior meanings—that deconstructionists have
“borrowed or adapted from stock” to define their
philosophy imply certain things about that philosophy.
Paragraph 3 is the heart of the text. This paragraph
discusses the specific ways in which the term
deconstruction sheds light on deconstructionist
methods. Basically, this term, which is taken from the
construction industr y, highlights deconstructionist
efforts to demolish, rather than simply criticize, literary
works.
The Big Picture:
• Many of you may have found this a difficult
passage because of its rather abstract nature.
Don’t worry if you don’t understand all of the
points made by the author—you’re not going to
be asked about most of them. The most
important thing to pick up on in a passage like
this one is the author’s critical tone—that’s
what’ll really help you to answer questions.
• Since this passage isn’t easy, a savvy test taker
might well have left it for last. On test day, begin
work on the reading comprehension section with
a more “concrete” passage.
The Questions:
7. (A)
This choice nicely captures the topic, scope, and
purpose of the passage.
(B) These literary terms didn’t pre-date deconstruction;
rather, deconstructionists turned these words into
literary terms. Besides, this is a mere detail in
paragraph 2; it’s certainly not the text’s main idea.
(C) also plays on a detail in paragraph 2.
20
(D) focuses on a detail in paragraph 3. Moreover, this
choice reflects the author’s opinion of deconstruction,
which isn’t necessarily what deconstructionists think of
deconstruction.
(E) This choice contradicts the author’s critical attitude
toward evaluating literature in light of “borrowed or
adapted” terminology.
8. (E)
This choice is a good paraphrase of lines 15–18.
(A) The author never claims that deconstruction would
have been impossible without the use of these terms.
He refers to them simply to highlight an aspect of
deconstructionist philosophy.
(B) is an au contraire choice. Lines 12–15 indicate
that deconstructionists have chosen neologisms for
very specific reasons.
(C) The author never says that deconstruction “contains
inherent contradictions.” What he says is that
deconstructionists are on the lookout for
contradictions in the work of others.
(D) is another au contraire choice. Deconstructionists
are interested enough “in the relationship between
words and their referents” that they’ve developed
terminology to illustrate this relationship.
9. (C)
The author’s belief about innovation in language (lines
1–6) is that it consists of giving new meanings to
existing words. (C) expresses precisely the same
relationship—existing components “are made to
function in new ways.”
None of the other choices reflects the author’s
fundamental idea about “borrowing or adapting”
something that already exists to serve a new end.
10. (B)
In lines 44–46, the author sets up a contrast between
deconstruction and criticism. In lines 46–56, he
fleshes out this contrast by defining criticism and
showing how it differs from deconstruction.
(A) Lines 46–56 do contain an example of sorts—the
example of the building. This example, however, is in
the text because it supports the contrast that the
author makes.
(C), (D), and (E) are beyond the scope of the text. If
anything, the author makes an argument in lines
46–56; he doesn’t undermine one (C). Nor does he
“codify a system” (D) or “dismiss an objection” (E):
What system? What objection?
 Section III: Reading Comprehension

11. (C)
In paragraph 1, the author argues that the old meaning
of words doesn’t disappear when people use these
words in new ways. In paragraph 2, the author provides
an example of this phenomenon by showing that the
word “signify” conjures up a certain idea, even though
deconstructionists don’t have this idea in mind when
they use this word.
(A), (B) paragraph 2 neither “introduces a hypothesis”
(A) nor “qualifies a claim” (B). It simply backs up an
abstract argument made in paragraph 1 with a
concrete example.
(D) distorts a detail in the last sentence of paragraph 2.
(E) Paragraph 3 “presents a contrasting view”—a view
that takes issue with deconstruction.

12. (B)
In paragraph 3, the author’s disapproval of
deconstruction, which he thinks “has no overtones of
skill or wisdom,” is evident. Equally apparent is his
approval of criticism, which is based on “skill and
insight.”
(A) Deconstructionists—not the author—think that it’s
important to “demonstrate false assumptions and
inherent contradictions.”
(C) The author has problems with deconstructionist
philosophy, not with the number of deconstructionists
(or, for that matter, other critics) who may analyze a
work.
(D) is a metaphor for an analytic process favored by
deconstructionists. The author is critical of this analytic
process.
(E) distorts a detail in lines 32–34. The author doesn’t
make any judgements about text structures; he makes
a judgement about differing modes of literary criticism.

13. (D)
This choice both reflects the author’s generally
negative attitude toward deconstruction, and echoes
his comment in lines 28–30.
(A), (B), (C) The author isn’t “guardedly optimistic”
(A) or “enthusiastic” (C) about deconstruction. Nor
does he “endorse” it in any respect (B). Indeed, he’s
critical of deconstruction’s search for authorial bias, as
well as the way it uses words and neologisms.
(E) is too strongly negative in tone. Besides, according
to the author, deconstructionists don’t think of literary
criticism as a “creative act.” Just the opposite; it’s a
repetitive, “mechanical” process.

21
PrepTest 14 Explained
Passage 3: Stolen Art
Questions 14–20
Topic and Scope: Stolen art; specifically, legislation
intended to protect “good-faith” purchasers of stolen
art.
Purpose and Main Idea: The author’s purpose is to
argue against such legislation; the author’s specific
main idea is that such legislation is not only
unnecessary to protect good-faith purchasers, but is
also unfair to those who seek to reclaim stolen art.
Paragraph Structure: Paragraph 1 describes the new
legislation designed to protect good-faith purchasers of
allegedly stolen art, essentially saying that the burden
of proof lies entirely with those who want to recover the
art, and restricting the amount of time that they have
to do so. Paragraph 2 discusses the rationale behind
the legislation, making the point that without such a
law any individual or organization that has made a
good-faith purchase of art is in jeopardy of losing it.
The Keyword “however” at the beginning of paragraph
3 signals that we’re about to get the author’s opinion.
He argues against the legislation on two grounds: (1)
it’s unnecessary because there haven’t been many
“reclamation suits” and (2) it’s unfair to those who
seek to recover stolen art because its stipulations
make it virtually impossible for them to press a claim.
In paragraph 4, the author goes on to argue that a
different type of legislation is necessary—legislation
that makes it easier for the rightful owners of stolen art
to find and reclaim their property.
The Big Picture:
• This passage is a pretty good place to begin work
on the reading comprehension section. Why? The
subject matter is ver y accessible, and the
author’s voice is plainly evident from line 25 on.
Moreover, even before you get to line 25, it’s
predictable that the first two paragraphs are
simply a set up for an authorial counterargument.
• Don’t worry about taking in all of the author’s
various reasons (in paragraph 3) for arguing that
the intended legislation is unfair to those who
want to recover stolen property—you can always
look them up if the questions demand it.
22
The Questions:
14. (C)
This choice neatly encompasses the author’s topic,
scope, and purpose.
(A) is an au contraire choice. In lines 25–26, the author
contends that reclamation suits haven’t been a
problem; therefore, he argues, legislation to “clarify”
the rights of museums isn’t necessary. Moreover, this
choice is too narrow in focus—the author looks at
more than simply “the legal position of museums…”
(B) is beyond the scope of the text. According to the
text, James Burke, a museum director, supports the
new legislation; but that’s quite different from saying
that museum directors in general urged it on the
government. In fact, the passage doesn’t say anything
about the attitudes of museum directors in general.
(D) is also beyond the scope of the text. First, the
passage doesn’t refer to “clashes” between “museum
professionals” and “members of the academic
community.” Second, the passage is about a specific
piece of legislation concerning stolen art, not about
arts-related legislation in general.
(E), too, is beyond the scope. The passage doesn’t
discuss any alleged “desire of some governments to
use legislation and litigation to recover cultural
property.” Moreover, the author’s attitude toward the
recovery of stolen art is such that he would be unlikely
to speak of legal “abuses” by governments that
actually sought to reclaim art.
15. (B)
Lines 3–5 make it abundantly clear that the “uncertainty”
referred to in line 2 concerns “the ownership of art,”
specifically legal challenges to the current owners by
those who claim that the art was previously stolen. The
rest of the passage takes up this very theme.
(A) is beyond the scope of the text. The passage deals
with the legal issue of ownership of allegedly stolen
art; it doesn’t discuss the moral issues involved in
ownership of “great art.”
(C) If anyone has got questions about the origins of art
works, it’s the people who’d like to reclaim them.
(D) is also beyond the scope of the text. The passage
doesn’t discuss “disputes” between “cultural institutions
vying for the opportunity to purchase” a piece of art.
(E) Current art owners aren’t worried about damage or
theft, but rather legal challenges to their ownership.

16. (C)
In the absence of a statute of limitations on the
recovery of art, Burke is afraid that any country might
pass a law at any time to the effect that all art works
produced within its territory are “cultural property” that
rightfully belong to it. Such a legal decision, he goes on
to argue, could involve museums that possess art
works from such a country in “ruinous” court battles.
Choice (C) reflects precisely the sort of scenario that
Burke fears.
(A) Burke is worried about art works currently held by
museums, not those that they might be prevented from
buying in the future.
(B),(E) Burke is concerned about possible national,
not international, legal developments.
(D) There’s nothing in the passage to indicate that
Burke thinks that private collectors pose a threat to
museums.
17. (C)
In paragraph 2, Burke refers to foreign governments as
potential adversaries of his nation’s museums.
(A), (D), (E) Burke never even mentions commercial art
dealers (A), private art collectors (D), or other countries’
museums (E).
(B) If anything, Burke views law enforcement officials
in his own country as potential allies. He does, after
all, praise his country’s new legislation.
18. (A)
This choice is a nice paraphrase of lines 25–26, where
the author, on the basis of past history, disputes
Burke’s fears (expressed in the previous paragraph)
that widespread reclamation suits could do serious
harm to current art holders.
(B),(E) The author explicitly states that reclamation
suits haven’t yet become a problem. And certainly not
as a result of supportive legislation (B), which isn’t on
the government’s agenda, or a growth in theft (E),
which isn’t even mentioned in the text.
(C) is an au contraire choice. The author says that
reclamation suits haven’t been a problem up to this
point in time.
(D) How could the author believe that lawsuits are a
sign of frustration, legitimate or otherwise, when he
suggests that they’ve been a ver y infrequent
occurrence?
Section III: Reading Comprehension
19. (D)
Paragraphs 3 and 4 clearly demonstrate that the author
opposes the proposed legislation with a series of
careful arguments. His attitude, in other words, is best
described as one of “reasoned opposition.”
(A), (B), (E) These choices wrongly suggest that the
author supports—with greater or lesser enthusiasm—
the proposed legislation. As a matter of fact, in
paragraph 4, he proposes counterlegislation.
(C) The author opposes the legislation on the grounds
that it is unnecessary to protect good-faith purchasers,
as well as unfair to those who are legitimately trying to
reclaim stolen art. This type of opposition certainly
doesn’t qualify as “fearful apprehension.”
20. (E)
In paragraph 4, the author advocates legislation that
would make it easier for rightful owners of art to
recover stolen property. A law that mandated the
collection and distribution of information about art
thefts would certainly make it easier for rightful owners
to recover their property.
(A) In lines 35–37, the author contends that museum
publications aren’t a solution to publicizing and
locating stolen art.
(B) Who should hold onto art that is the subject of
litigation isn’t an issue that the author delves into.
(C) The author favors those who want to reclaim stolen
property, not museums that would like to keep it.
(D) The author’s concerned with the reclamation of
stolen art, not with museum-to-museum sales of it.
23
PrepTest 14 Explained
Passage 4: Russian Serfdom, US Slavery
Questions 21–27
Topic and Scope: Kolchin’s comparative study of
serfdom in Russia and slavery in the United States;
specifically, Kolchin’s identification of impor tant
differences between the two systems.
Purpose and Main Idea: Author wants to outline
Kochin’s findings, “especially with regard to the
different kinds of rebellion exhibited by slaves and
serfs.”
Paragraph Structure: Paragraph 1 explains that very
few historians have compared slavery and serfdom,
with the final sentence introducing Kolchin’s book.
Paragraph 2 notes key differences in the number and
population size of slave- or ser f-owing estates in
Russia and the US. Paragraph 3 explains that these
demographic differences “partly explain differences in
the kinds of resistance that slaves and serfs practiced
in their respective countries.” Resistance was common
in both countries, but large, organized, armed
rebellions were more common in Russia. Conflicts
between US owners and slaves were frequent but less
collective, mostly because there were fewer workers on
each estate in the US.
The Big Picture:
• This history passage focuses on a book. That’s
common. What’s unusual is that the author gives
no direct critical assessment of Kolchin’s ideas.
The author just lays out Kolchin’s findings,
implying that his work is satisfactory.
• The academic lingo is long-winded, but the
paragraphs organize things nicely—certainly a
dividend for the pressured test taker. Paragraph 1:
a long intro to Kolchin; paragraph 2: the key
demographics; paragraph 3: differences in forms
of rebellion.
The Questions:
21. (A)
(A) captures the gist of the key final sentence of
paragraph 1, and it echoes the thrust of paragraph 3.
Plus it echoes the content of paragraph 2, which
supplies the demographic facts that explain the
differences in forms of slave and serf resistance.
24
(B) contradicts the passage. Kolchin has now written
such a study—and the implication is that it’s at least
“adequate.”
(C) refers to a detail in paragraph 3. It entirely leaves
out the companion issue of slave resistance in the US.
(D) distorts the passage, which never suggests that
Kolchin is skeptical of comparative studies. On the
contrary—he’s written one!
(E) De Toqueville is a passing detail in paragraph 1.
22. (B)
(B) paraphrases the first 2–3 sentences. It’s as simple
as that.
(A) contradicts the opening sentence: “Until recently,
few historians were interested in analyzing the
similarities and differences between” serfdom and
slavery.
(C) distorts the passage, which never suggests any
“inability” on de Toqueville’s part—he simply never
addressed the issue of abolition in the two countries.
(D) Like (A), (D) contradicts the first sentence.
(E) Half-right, half-wrong. De Toqueville “recognized the
significant comparability of the two nations…” but his
commonality with other historians was that he never
compared slavery and serfdom.
23. (C)
(C) is consistent with key info in paragraphs 2–3.
Organized rebellions were common in Russia because
most serfs lived on large estates, which encouraged
collective forms of resistance. A parallel idea would be
that any organized rebellions occurring in the US would,
like those in Russia, have occurred on large estates.
(A) would weaken Kolchin’s theme. His idea is that
Russian conditions tended to encourage hugely
explosive revolts, not merely “smaller collective acts of
defiance”—the volnenie.
(B) picks up on info in the second sentence of paragraph
3: Much of the rebelliousness in both countries—which
took the form of silent sabotage—escaped the
historical record. Kolchin’s major point, however, is
that demographics accounted for differences in the
occurrence of over t armed rebellion, not silent
sabotage. Plus, if there were armed revolts in the US
that escaped the historical record, then that would raise
questions about, not strengthen, Kolchin’s findings.(D)
goes on at length without saying anything especially
relevant.
 Section III: Reading Comprehension

(E) would undercut Kolchin, who points to a revealing

correlation between the likelihood of serf revolt and the
fact that most Russian estates were managed by
intermediaries.

24. (C)
(C) paraphrases the passage. The author’s surprised
that the coincidence of abolition in Russia and the US
“failed to arouse the interest of scholars.” As (C) says,
that coincidence should have prompted comparative
study of the two institutions.
(A) The passage never explains what led to abolition in
either country.
(B) The passage never suggests that de Toqueville
missed something he should have noticed.
(D) No criticism of Kolchin’s book is ever made.
(E) is inconsistent with the passage, which stresses
key differences between slavery and serfdom.

25. (A)
This choice repeats info in the last sentence of
paragraph 1: “…historians might have been put off by
the forbidding political differences between nineteenth-
century Russia and the United States.” None of the
other choices are suggested.

26. (D)
(D) is a simple paraphrase of the point made in the
last sentence of paragraph 2: “In Russia most serfs
rarely saw their owners…”
(A) Never suggested. The only action attributed to the
nobles was their relying on intermediaries to manage
their estates.
(B) Ditto. Never suggested.
(C) Never suggested.
(E) Never suggested.

27. (D)
(D) is pretty directly stated in the last sentence of
paragraph 2, the same material that provided the
answer to question 26.
(A) The passage never says that any estate owner—
Russian or US—was “prepared for collective protest.”
(B) Au contraire. Most southern planters—98% of them,
implies paragraph 2—owned fewer than 100 slaves.
(C) Tempting, since most Russian estates were
managed by intermediaries, but not clearly implied. (D)
is far better.
(E) Au contraire, according to paragraph 2.

25
PrepTest 14 Explained
SECTION IV:
LOGICAL REASONING
1. (E)
We’re asked to explain why measuring the cholesterol
levels of their blood apparently enabled participants
who were given kits to lower their cholesterol levels
more than those who weren’t given kits. As (E) has it,
people who had kits and could therefore measure their
levels were more motivated to lower these levels. In
other words, they worked harder at it than the
participants who didn’t get kits.
(A) is too vague. It implies that the readings of the
people who got kits were inaccurate, but that could
mean that the people with kits actually lowered their
levels by even more than 15 percent, which would only
worsen the discrepancy, so (A) is no help.
(B) rules out a possible alternative explanation. If
participants with the kits ate lots of foods that lower
cholesterol levels, that might explain why their levels
were lower, but (B) says they avoided such foods,
which only makes things even more mysterious.
(C) is irrelevant. How could using the kit more frequently
during the first two months explain why people with kits
ended up with lower cholesterol levels?
(D) provides useless background information. So what
if everyone lowered their cholesterol levels somewhat,
or if this was achieved in the first three months? That
doesn’t resolve the discrepancy between the cholesterol
levels of those with kits and those without ’em.
2. (D)
To match the principle given, we need a situation in
which someone either doesn’t praise a seemingly
generous act because he or she believes it was done
for selfish reasons, or doesn’t condemn an apparently
selfish act because he or she believes it was not done
for selfish reasons. We get the former in (D): Margaret
offered to share her house with the French family not
because she wanted to be generous but because she
wanted to use their apartment—a clearly selfish
motive, so Daniel was correct not to praise her.
(A), (C), (E) All of these choices fail one the same
basic count: The principle involves withholding praise
or condemnation, and the correct choice must adhere
to this element. The principle also concerns people’s
motives in performing certain actions, but we don’t
even know Monica’s motives for offering to help
Caroline (A), and William doesn’t have any apparent
26
motive for not staying in touch with Enrique—he’s
simply an airhead (C).
(B) would work if it told us that Michael’s motives for
donating to charity were selfish, but instead it tells us
that his motives for telling Sarah he donates to charity
are selfish.
3. (C)
We’re asked to explain why, after widespread publicity
about a study that showed that bottled water is
generally less safe to drink than tap water, sales of
bottled water continued to go up. The key phrase here
is “in many cases.” This implies that not all the bottled
water is worse than tap water, which allows the
possibility of choice (C): While bottled water overall
may not be safe, if some popular brands of it are even
safer than tap water, then these brands could account
for the increase in sales.
(A) provides useless detail about why bottled water is
less safe than drinking water, but we want to know why,
given that this is so, people are buying more bottled
water than ever.
(B) and (E) rule out possible alternative explanations.
In (B), if consumers preferred the taste of bottled
water to tap water, that might explain why they continue
drinking it when they know it isn’t safe, but (B) says
they can’t distinguish between the two, so it’s no help.
In (E), if frequent government warnings caused
consumers to ignore the study, that too could explain
the increased sales, but (E) instead says that frequent
warnings make consumers even more leery of unsafe
foods, which only reinforces the paradox.
(D) implies that the study has caused increases in
bottled-water sales to slow somewhat. So what? The
point is that sales continue to increase, and (D)
doesn’t explain why this is so.
4. (C)
Evidence: There are nonrenewable, economically useful
raw materials on Earth. Conclusion: If these materials
can’t be found somewhere else besides Earth, people
will no longer be able to achieve what they now achieve
using the materials. You may have been able to pre-
phrase an answer to this one: Maybe they can use
other materials that are renewable to accomplish what
is currently accomplished with the original materials.
The author has assumed this is not an option, and (C),
by breaking down this assumption, undermines the
argument.

(A) is beyond the scope. Evidence and conclusion
deal with economically useful resources that are
nonrenewable; renewable resources are irrelevant.
(B) is irrelevant. The author never claims that it’ll be
easy to find raw materials in outer space, so denying
that it’s easy doesn’t affect her reasoning.
(D) involves a scope shift. The issue is whether or not
people will be able to accomplish what they now
accomplish with certain resources, not whether or not
the things they accomplish are worth accomplishing.
(E) provides useless background information. The author
specifically uses the word “eventually,” so who cares
how long it will take for these nonrenewable resources
to be depleted? A few hundred years, or a few
thousand years, it makes no difference—we’re
interested in whether or not people will be able to
accomplish what they now accomplish using those
resources, and (E) doesn’t address this.
5. (B)
In the first experiment, levels of naturally occurring
salicylic acid in the resistant plants went way up when
those plants were infected with tobacco mosaic virus;
this didn’t happen in the nonresistant plants. In the
second experiment, the nonresistant plants that were
injected with salicylic acid didn’t become infected when
exposed to the virus, while the ones that didn’t get
injections fell victim to the disease. We definitely have
a pattern developing here. It appears that salicylic acid
production has something to do with the way that
tobacco plants protect themselves from the disease
caused by tobacco mosaic virus.
(A) Scope shift: Neither experiment dealt with curing
plants that were already diseased, so we can’t infer
that injections of salicylic acid can accomplish this.
(C) Read carefully! In the first experiment, levels of
naturally occurring salicylic acid didn’t increase in the
nonresistant plants infected with the virus, implying that,
contrary to (C), these plants do produce some salicylic
acid, just not as much as the resistant plants do.
(D) is beyond the scope. The stimulus never discusses
how to test whether an uninfected tobacco plant is
resistant to the mosaic virus, so we have no idea how
this would be done.
(E) too is beyond the scope. We don’t know if it’s
possible to increase salicylic acid production in
nonresistant tobacco plants, since the stimulus never
dealt with this issue. All we know is that injecting these
plants with salicylic acid helped fight off the virus.
Section IV: Logical Reasoning
6. (A)
The big assumption in this argument is that we can
gauge the level of heroin use solely by the number of
number of hospital emergency room visits by heroin
users. But notice that we’re not even told that these
heroin users showed up in the emergency room for
heroin-related incidents. The number of heroin users
that showed up in emergency rooms in the 80s could
have increased while the use of heroin didn’t if more
heroin users went to the emergency room for other
reasons than they did in the past. (A)’s increase in the
use of automatic weapons and thus in the risk of injury
to heroin users makes it possible that there were more
emergency room visits because of increased gunshot
wounds among heroin users, not because of any
increase in heroin usage.
(B) wouldn’t account for the author’s evidence. If
users are less likely to get infected by smoking this
new form of heroin, then it would seem there should
have been fewer, not more, emergency room visits by
heroin users.
(C) doesn’t satisfy the first requirement in the stem:
The ability to accommodate the increase in heroin
users does nothing to explain why that increase
happened in the first place.
(D)’s the au contraire choice; it claims that heroin use
did increase. But we’re looking for a scenario where
emergency room visits went up while heroin use didn’t,
so (D)’s no good.
(E) provides useless background information. Knowing
what types of heroin-related ailments caused heroin
users to visit emergency rooms is no help in our effort
to show that emergency room visits went up while
heroin use didn’t.
7. (C)
As mentioned above, the author assumes that there’s
a connection between the number of emergency room
visits by heroin users and the incidence of heroin
usage. To use the Denial Test, if there were no
correlation between the two, the author’s argument
would make no sense, so (C) must be assumed.
(A) is beyond the scope. The author deals with
emergency room visits by heroin users; nothing is
assumed about when or why heroin users seek medical
care. To use the Denial Test again, it wouldn’t affect
the argument at all if, contrary to (A), heroin users
typically seek medical care in the early stages of
addiction.
27
PrepTest 14 Explained
(B), since it would weaken the argument, can’t be
assumed. If heroin users visit emergency rooms
repeatedly, then it’s possible that the number of
emergency room visits has gone up because of repeat
visits and not because of any increase in heroin use.
(D) is reminiscent of choice (B) in Question 6. If the
new methods of using heroin are less dangerous,
shouldn’t the number emergency room visits have
declined rather than increased? (D) makes no sense,
so it can’t be assumed.
(E) It’s not necessary to the argument that the heroin
users who go to emergency rooms identify themselves
as such, just that the hospital is aware that they are
heroin users (otherwise, there’d be no way to tell that
the number of visits by heroin users has increased). To
use the Denial Test again, it wouldn’t affect the
argument if heroin users did not identify themselves as
such when they visited emergency rooms.
8. (E)
In the stimulus, we get a correlation between two
phenomena (sunspot activity and popular uprisings);
then a connection linking the two: Sunspot activity
causes more positive ions, which cause greater anxiety
and irritability. The argument then concludes with an
assertion of causation: Sunspot activity must be at
least partly responsible for popular uprisings. So we
can abstract the logical thrust of the argument:
Correlation between two things; a supposed
connection; therefore, causality. We get this in (E):
correlation (between offices with lots of windows and
high productivity); the connection (more exposure to
natural light increases alertness); therefore, causation
(the greater number of windows is at least partly
responsible for certain people’s higher productivity).
(A), unlike the stimulus, doesn’t argue that the
correlation between the birds’ flight patterns and
certain events shows that the first caused the second;
instead, it claims that the flight patterns were the
result of some other factor that “also” helped cause
the events.
(B) argues for a correlation between Ridgeview’s
academic worth and the success of its graduates, but
it doesn’t contain any kind of long causal chain;
moreover, it’s completely unlike the stimulus argument
in that it argues against another claim: Ridgeview’s
poor academic reputation.
(C)’s correlation-to-causation argument is similar to
that in the stimulus, but it also contains another
element—an argument from past (last winter) to future
28
(next winter). This hypothetical future event (“if prices
are high next winter”) plays no part in the original.
(D) correlates a diet high in vegetables with good
health, but rather than argue, as the stimulus and (E)
do, that the first causes the second, (D) instead
concludes with a recommendation: everyone should
eat vegetables. No recommendations are found in the
stimulus, so (D)’s not parallel.
9. (D)
A bit of disguised formal logic here: In order to be
elected, one cannot support the new plan. Everyone
that understands economics doesn’t support the tax
plan. Therefore, only someone who understands
economics can be elected. You should be able to pre-
phrase the problem with this reasoning: People who
understand economics aren’t necessarily the only
people who don’t support the new tax plan. There
could easily be people who don’t support the plan,
don’t understand economics, and yet can still be
elected.
(A) isn’t a possibility that’s overlooked; in fact, it’s
the crux of the second premise in the argument.
(B) There could be people who truly understand
economics yet have no chance of being elected due to
other reasons; this doesn’t undermine the conclusion
that understanding economics is necessary to be
elected. So even though the author doesn’t
acknowledge the group in (B), the existence of this
group doesn’t show why the argument is flawed.
(C) Same as (B): In order to be elected, one can’t
suppor t the tax plan. Non-suppor t is therefore
necessary to being elected. That doesn’t mean that
it’s sufficient—nothing requires that ever y non-
supporter is eligible for election. Again, one could be
against the tax plan and still fall short for other
reasons. So, like (B), the possibility that this group
exists doesn’t show why the argument is flawed.
(E) Since (E)’s claim is about people who aren’t
electable, it has no bearing on the author’s conclusion.
We’ve already established in the other answer
choices that there can be a whole host of reasons that
people aren’t electable other than the lack of an
understanding of economics.
10. (A)
In responding to the interviewer’s objection that some
insomniacs don’t respond to treatment, the therapist
claims that their failure to respond merely proves that
these people didn’t rigorously adhere to their
treatment. The problem with this reply is that it doesn’t

allow for the therapist to be wrong; no matter what
evidence anyone produces that some insomniacs
failed to respond to the therapist’s treatment, the
therapist can simply argue that these people didn’t try
hard enough. In other words, the therapist is always
right, or, as (A) rather pompously puts it, his reply
“precludes the possibility of disconfirming evidence.”
(B) There’s no ambiguity about the term “treatment”;
the therapist uses it to refer to the same thing as the
interviewer does: treatment for insomnia.
(C) is irrelevant. Neither the interviewer nor the therapist
discusses the reasons for patients’ insomnia; they’re
interested in cures, plain and simple.
(D) There’s no need for statistics because the therapist
doesn’t argue on the basis of statistics. Rather, he
makes the sweeping claim that anyone who doesn’t
respond to his treatment just isn’t trying hard enough.
(E) is beyond the scope. Insomniacs who would improve
on their own, without treatment, aren’t part of the
argument. The argument concerns insomniacs who
don’t respond to any treatment, not those who do
respond to a lack of treatment.
11. (E)
The conservative argues that history is not inevitable,
despite the fact that socialist arguments begin with an
analysis of history and claim to locate trends therein
that lead ineluctably to socialism. The socialist replies
that if socialists thought history was inevitable, they
wouldn’t attempt to transform capitalist institutions,
and that socialists analyze histor y in order to
understand these institutions and thereby transform
them. Thus the source of the dispute is why socialists
analyze history: to argue that socialism is inevitable,
as the conser vative believes, or to understand
capitalist institutions in order to transform them, as
the socialist claims.
(A) Both the socialist and the conservative agree that
socialism is not inevitable, so this can’t be the source
of their disagreement.
(B) is beyond the scope of the dispute. The socialist
evidently thinks capitalist institutions need
transforming, but the conservative never discusses
them, so we don’t know whether he disagrees with the
socialist on this point.
(C) Again, as the socialist points out, socialists don’t
think socialism is inevitable, so this can’t be the
source of the disagreement.
(D) is a point both agree on. The socialist obviously
believes people can affect the course of history—she
Section IV: Logical Reasoning
argues that socialists analyze history in order to work
to transform capitalist institutions and thereby bring
about socialism. And the conservative claims history
occurs through “individual struggle,” among other
things, so apparently, he too thinks people can affect
the course of history.
12. (E)
To recap, the conservative’s view of history is that it
occurs through accident, contingency, and individual
struggle. The socialist, meanwhile, believes that
people can work to bring about socialism by
transforming the institutions of capitalist society. So
far, no disagreement—both hold that individuals can
affect the course of history. But if, as (E) has it, the
conservative also thinks that history is mostly the
result of accident and that it’s therefore impossible for
people to bring about large-scale social changes, then
he must disagree with the socialist’s statements.
(A) is beyond the scope. Neither the socialist nor the
conservative discusses the possibility of predicting
present forms of capitalism, so this is irrelevant.
(B) This is precisely what the conservative argues:
that history only appears inevitable in retrospect. But
since the socialist doesn’t think history is inevitable
either, they don’t disagree on this point.
(C) is beyond the scope. Neither radical changes in
social structures nor the results of those changes are
mentioned, so we don’t know the socialist’s or the
conservative’s opinions about them.
(D)’s also beyond the scope. The socialist never
discusses the role of accident or contingency in
bringing about socialism, so it’s possible she would
agree with the conservative’s belief that socialism
arises purely from individual struggle.
13. (C)
The author uses evidence that dependence on and
abuse of a drug needn’t go hand in hand in order to
conclude that the definition of “addiction” must be
incorrect. In so arguing, she assumes that the cancer
patients who, she claims, depend on but do not abuse
morphine, are actually addicted to morphine. This
assumption is so simple you might have missed it, but
look at it this way: If those cancer patients were not
addicted to morphine, the author couldn’t use them as
evidence that the definition of “addiction” is incorrect.
(A) is tricky, but it’s not assumed. Strictly speaking, it’s
possible that, contrary to (A), the cancer patients who
depend on morphine do occasionally abuse it—that
29
PrepTest 14 Explained
wouldn’t affect the author’s claim that dependence and
abuse don’t “always” go hand in hand.
(B) No; the author states that cancer patients can
become addicted to morphine, and then goes on to use
this case to show that this doesn’t always lead to
abuse. Nothing is assumed about whether cancer
patients “often” become dependent on morphine; even
if it’s a rare occurrence, that wouldn’t affect the stream
of logic.
(D) is a misreading. The author argues that cancer
patients can be dependent on morphine without abusing
it; there’s no assumption about cancer patients who do
abuse drugs, since they’re not part of her argument.
(E) As Descartes would declare, “Au contraire!” If the
author assumed that cancer patients can’t depend on
morphine without abusing it, that would destroy her
argument that abuse and dependency don’t necessarily
go together.
14. (D)
The argument is basically one from whole to part, with
a past-to-present element: Since the panel that
resolved the Amlec dispute was reasonable and fair,
the argument goes, Judge Khalid, who was on that
panel, is reasonable and fair as well. Similarly, (D)
erroneously asserts that because a certain real estate
company sold fewer houses last year than it had the
year before, Ula Borg, an agent employed by that
company, must have sold fewer houses last year than
she had the previous year. Both arguments attribute a
characteristic of a group to a member of that group,
and both contain a similar time element—the stimulus
moves from past to present; (D) goes from two years
ago to last year.
(A)’s flawed, but not in the same way as the stimulus:
It asserts that since, by definition, only an elected
member of the school board can ser ve as its
representative, and since Marcia Barthes represented
the board before the principal, she must therefore have
been recently elected to the board—not necessarily so.
(B) The main hook in the original is that an individual
was part of a group in which something happened, and
therefore the same will hold true for the individual. In
(B), Candalf, who’s decided to become a pediatrician,
is yet to be part of the larger group.
(C) Here, the erroneous conclusion is that Diaz must
be part of the larger group. In the original, however, the
individual is already a member of a larger group and
the erroneous conclusion is that what holds for the
group must necessarily hold for the individual.
30
(E) claims that George must have voted to make the
city hall a landmark, when we’re not even told the
society’s vote on that issue. The original, and the
correct choice, involve an individual following suit from
a group’s action, but following along the same lines.
Here, city hall is an entirely different issue from the
bank.
15. (C)
The author reasons that because the commissioner’s
new proposals are identical to the ones issued by
Tsarque, Inc., which has engaged in heavy polluting,
they must therefore be worthless. As (C) points out,
this amounts to dismissing the proposals because of
their source rather than their content. Indeed, the fact
that the proposals may have come from Tsarque is
irrelevant; they could still be worthwhile, despite
Tsarque’s environmental record.
(A) The argument doesn’t assume this “without any
justification”; as it points out, Tsarque’s chief and the
commissioner are good friends.
(B) The author doesn’t give any version of the proposals,
let alone a distorted one.
(D) Although the author rather sarcastically suggests
that the commissioner couldn’t have come up with
“fresh thinking” on the environment, the argument
doesn’t appeal to emotion, as (D) implies; it rejects
the proposals because of where they’re from rather
than what they say.
(E) There’s no appeal to authority here; the author
mentions Tsarque’s chief solely in order to claim that
Tsarque is the ultimate source of the proposals.
16. (A)
The argument concludes (in the first sentence) that the
definition of “natural foods” should include all plants,
including plants grown with the application of synthetic
chemicals. To justify this conclusion, the author
redefines the term “natural” as “part of nature.”
(B) The argument recommends no specific action (except
a redefining of terms), and in any case, no evidence is
provided to show why this redefinition of terms is
beneficial.
(C) is a distortion. The argument uses some scientific
language, but the key here is redefining the word
“natural”; the author doesn’t directly appeal to the
authority of scientific methods for this purpose.
(D) The argument never questions the use of the term
“organic.” It’s “natural” that concerns us.

(E) The “position being rejected” is that “organic”
foods are the only natural foods. Since no evidence is
presented supporting this position, the author can’t
possibly be “reinterpreting evidence presented as
supporting…”
17. (E)
There are two courses that Angela needs to complete
her psychology degree: experimental design and
developmental psychology. Experimental design must
be completed before taking developmental psych. “On
completing both,” she’ll have earned her degree. So
we can conclude that once Angela completes
developmental psych, she will have also completed
experimental design, and will therefore have earned
her degree.
(A) is contradicted by the argument. If developmental
psych isn’t offered until next term, and Angela could
still complete her degree in two terms, then this course
must only take one term.
(B) is beyond the scope. We have no information on
which of the two courses is easier.
(C) could be true, but it’s also possible that Angela
has already completed the necessary prerequisites for
the experimental design course.
(D) is a scope shift. Our information is all about Angela;
we have no definite information regarding the general
university or departmental requirements.
18. (D)
In 75% of minor accidents involving small airplanes,
voice-recorder tapes record the whistling of the pilot
shortly before the accident. Thus, concludes the
stimulus, pilot-whistling is a fairly reliable indicator of
an impending accident. The assumption being made is
that a whistling pilot is not a normal condition on small
planes. After all, if 90% of small airplane pilots whistle
from take-off to landing, it wouldn’t be much of a
revelation that most of them are whistling shortly
before minor accidents. Choice (D) highlights this
assumption, exposing the major weakness in the
argument.
(A) Once again, as we’ve seen earlier on this test,
we’re not trying to debate the validity of the evidence,
but rather the reasoning that connects the evidence
with the conclusion. In other words, it’s not the
reliability of the statistics used in the evidence that’s
important, but rather how that evidence is used to
formulate a conclusion.
Section IV: Logical Reasoning
(B) makes a useless distinction. If the safety
precautions would help some passengers, then the
recommendation is worthwhile, but only if it were true
that pilot-whistling is a reliable predictor of minor
accidents.
(C) In this context, it’s not necessary to explicitly
define “relatively minor”; this is simply a condition which
limits the scope of the argument. It doesn’t affect the
basic logical structure.
(E) distorts the issue, and entirely omits the major
element, whistling. Whether the percentage of small
airplane flights that involve relatively minor accidents is
ten or seventy, the basic logic of the argument stays
the same.
19. (A)
You may not have immediately spotted this
assumption, but it checks out nicely with the Denial
Test. Since the permits govern the discharge of
individual chemicals only, if relatively harmless
chemicals (discharged under permit) do interact with
each other in water to form harmful compounds, then
the waterways would be endangered.
(B) Since the amount of water flowing through the
waterway has already been taken into account in
determining the amount of chemicals that may be
discharged (second sentence), it’s not necessary to
make any assumptions about how swiftly the water
flows.
(C) The argument’s conclusion is that the waterways
are protected from harmful effects of chemicals
discharged under permit. Whether there are chemicals
which may not be discharged into the waterway under
any circumstances is beyond the scope.
(D) The argument claims that the maximum amount of
chemical discharged as determined by the permits is
not harmful to the waterway, so it’s not necessary to
assume that permit-holders sometimes discharge less
than they are allowed.
(E) is beyond the scope of the argument. The question
is whether the permit system protects the waterway
from adverse effects, as determined by the permit
system. How those adverse effects are defined is a
separate question.
20. (E)
The key here is that Monroe concludes that it is solely
due to Tip-Top’s hot peppers that he became ill.
Perhaps there is some other factor he has overlooked,
such as the fact that “despite his generally poor
31
PrepTest 14 Explained
appetite” he ate 1) an extra-large pizza, 2) all-you-can-
eat shrimp, and 3) two meatball sandwiches. The
existence of such a plausible alternate explanation for
his illness seriously weakens Monroe’s conclusion.
(A) Monroe’s conclusion is limited in scope only to the
three meals he actually ate at the Tip-Top, so it’s
logically valid for him to use only those three meals as
evidence.
(B) is contradicted by the information in the passage;
we’re specifically told that after each meal (the
presumed cause), Monroe became ill (the presumed
effect).
(C) requires us to assume that Monroe does in fact
desire to continue to eat at the Tip-Top.
(D) contains a scope shift. Monroe’s logic never
claims that Tip-Top’s hot peppers make everybody ill,
only that they make him ill.
21. (B)
This is similar to a logic games question; we’re asked
to consider the if-clause to be a statement of fact, and
then draw a conclusion based on this new information.
Reduced to formal logic, Monroe’s evidence and
conclusion read thus: “If Monroe eats Tip-Top’s hot
peppers, he becomes ill.” So we can logically conclude
that if Monroe had eaten the chicken with hot peppers,
he would have become ill.
(A) and (C) can both be reduced in formal logic to “If
Monroe does not eat Tip-Top’s hot peppers, he will not
become ill.” Not only is this logically invalid (the fallacy
of the converse), but it goes against common sense:
The fact that hot peppers will make him ill doesn’t
allow us to conclude that a lack of hot peppers will
ensure that he won’t be ill—Monroe could become ill
next time for any number of other reasons.
(D) and (E) answer the wrong question. Each provides
(limited) support for Monroe’s argument. Neither,
however, is a conclusion which can be drawn from “If
Monroe eats Tip-Top’s hot peppers, he becomes ill.”
22. (A)
The company will not be training more pilots because
there will be no shortage of trained pilots in the
foreseeable future. The evidence: Each of the six major
companies (the author’s and the other five) have
roughly 400 trained pilots on their waiting lists, and the
projected requirement for pilots is only 100 per
company. In other words, there are apparently 2400
trained pilots waiting for 600 future jobs. If, however,
most of the trained pilots on one waiting list are also
32
on the waiting list for the other five companies, then
the number of unemployed trained pilots could, in fact,
be lower than the projected demand, seriously
undermining the author’s conclusion.
(B) contains a scope shift. Even if pilot training will be
necessary in the long run, that doesn’t affect the
conclusion, which is about the foreseeable future.
(C) doesn’t weaken the argument, because we have
no reason (i.e. no evidence in the passage) to believe
that an age imbalance in the pilot work force will cause
a personnel shortage in the foreseeable future.
(D) is an au contraire choice. If the argument takes into
account the current upswing in the aviation industry,
that would only strengthen the evidence on which the
conclusion is based.
(E) is irrelevant background information. The policies
of other companies with regard to pilot-training have no
bearing on the industry need for trained pilots as
outlined in the argument.
23. (C)
The author concludes that people with car alarms
should deactivate them when parking in crowded city
neighborhoods at night, on the grounds that “whatever
the cause (presumably, including the possibility that a
car is actually being stolen), the sleep of many people
in the neighborhood is disturbed.” For this conclusion
to be valid, the author must assume that allowing
those people to sleep soundly is more important than
preventing car theft.
(A) is an au contraire choice. If the author placed
neighborhood security over inconvenience, her argument
would fall apart.
(B) is tempting, but it’s not necessary for the author to
assume that most, or even many times car alarms go
off that they are false alarms. Her recommendation is
based on “consideration for others,” and “whatever the
cause,” the sound of car alarms wakes people up
inconsiderately.
(D) The author might believe this, but it’s not a
necessary assumption. The author could believe that
car alarm owners are considerate in every other
respect; it wouldn’t affect the logic of her argument.
(E) is a scope shift. The author’s recommendation deals
only with the night-time use of car alarms.
 Section IV: Logical Reasoning

24. (C)
The passage suggests two possible explanations for
lines found in the Peruvian desert: 1) they were landing
strips for alien spaceships, and 2) they were Inca
roads. The investigator supports the first explanation
by rhetorically questioning the plausibility of the
second.
(A) No direct counterevidence to the alien spaceship
theory is mentioned.
(B) The investigator presents no evidence to counter
the Inca road interpretation; he simply questions its
plausibility.
(D) The investigator doesn’t challenge the methods of
those who support the Inca road interpretation; in
fact, he doesn’t mention the developers of this
interpretation at all.
(E) No attempt is made to reconcile the alien-spaceship
interpretation with the Inca road interpretation.

25. (B)
We’re asked to provide support to an interpretation of
the lines as referring to astronomical phenomena. So
we need a choice that suggests a plausible explanation
for both the straight lines and the bird figure to have
some astronomical referent. Choice (B) fills the bill.
(A) and (D) both refer to Native American interest in
astronomical phenomena, but neither mentions the
patterns found in the Peruvian desert, so neither can
be the correct choice.
(C) addresses only the straight line pattern. It doesn’t
mention the bird figure or astronomical phenomena.
(E) makes a useless distinction; the relative ages of
the two desert patterns neither supports nor weakens
the claim that they both refer to astronomical
phenomena.

33
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